Heartbeat
by melissaeverdeen13
Summary: Katniss and Peeta haven't been together for the entirety of the daughter's life, but have built their own separate worlds up around her. The spark they once had has never quite faded away, and the strength of their relationship is put to the test when the scariest thing that could have happened to the both of them, happens.
1. One

Katniss was never one to act hastily on anything, and the thing she took the most pride in was the name she chose for her daughter: Mercy.

Mercy Everdeen, so far in her five years of life, had been aptly named.

Katniss packed her daughter's lunch painstakingly in the morning, making sure that she had a balanced meal that was tucked away with no chance of spillage. While Mercy was at her house, this was something she enjoyed doing before her daughter woke up.

She used to pack her backpack, too, but since entering kindergarten, Mercy's teachers insisted that children this age need to start learning more responsibility. Mercy was glad for the new job and looked forward to checking off the list of items in her bag each day. It made Katniss proud just to see her daughter acting like a normal kid, since she had spent a lot of her life robbed of that.

"Cici, wake up," Katniss sang, peering into her daughter's room. The walls were painted light orange with a mural of a field of dandelions on the one opposite of the window. It was quite obvious that it was Peeta's hands who had made the masterpiece.

Her room was messy; clothes strewn about on the floor and over the rocking chair in the corner, a whole art set dumped out in the corner by her easel, and her bucket of Barbies was turned upside down to act as a makeshift stool. Katniss shook her head at the mess and made a mental reminder to get Mercy to clean it up when she got home. "Time to get up, or else you'll be late!"

"Mommy, five more minutes?" Her little voice was muffled from her thick covers, so Katniss pulled them off. Mercy was lying there with her hands tucked up by her face, one thumb in her mouth, jumbling her words.

"Five more minutes turns into all day, we gotta get up," Katniss said.

" _Daddy_ lets me have five more minutes," Mercy said, her voice lilting.

"I'm sure he does," Katniss said, then lifted her daughter out of bed. "What's the beat this morning?"

"109 and feelin' fine!" Mercy repeated, finishing the old routine.

Of course she didn't know what her exact heart rate was, but she and Katniss exchanged that phrase every morning since Mercy became aware of her illness.

When Katniss was a bit less than halfway through her pregnancy with her daughter, during an ultrasound the obstetrician said the words that would end up changing her life. _There's something wrong with your baby's heart._

Though they weren't together anymore at that point, Peeta had been standing beside her, because the malfunctioning heart inside Katniss's belly was his, too. The doctors had said to expect a stillbirth in the coming weeks, in lesser words, a dead baby. Katniss refused to accept that. The idea of carrying around a lifeless little fetus inside her womb until her muscles contracted it out was something she would not do.

And she didn't. Mercy was born alive. Silent, but alive. With blue hands, feet and mouth, but alive. With coarctation of the aorta, but alive.

The doctors explained to her over and over. The little tube that pumped to Mercy's lungs, organs and entire body was too narrow to supply her body with blood sufficiently. When she was born, the first thing she did was go into emergency surgery to open up that tube.

They did open up the tube, but after, their tiny little infant was on an ECMO machine for almost a full week, a life support system that did all the work for her lungs and heart because they couldn't do it for her on their own.

Katniss didn't get to hold her daughter until a week and a half after she was born.

She brought Mercy home when she was two months old, and it was the scariest thing she'd ever had to experience. She had to play both nurse and mother, administering heart medications to make sure that valve stayed open like it should. She had to make sure the house was completely sterile, all the time, so no dangerous germs could get into Mercy's weakened system. Katniss used to sit in the rocking chair next to the crib and just watch her baby sleep, waiting for her to wake up, just so she knew she was alive. While most mothers were exasperated by a fussy baby, Katniss relished in the sound of Mercy's cries. Crying meant she was getting stronger.

And she did get stronger. But even as she grew from infant to toddler, she still had to go in for routine bloodwork once a month. Katniss dreaded those hospital visits because each time, Mercy would flail, thrash and scream, and Katniss would have to hold her down while the unlucky nurse took blood from her. She could practically feel her daughter's pain and fear. She would do anything to take it away.

Now, her heart was doing better. She didn't go in for checkups as much, but still more than the average child. She could run out on the playground with her friends without anyone knowing she was different. She was their miracle baby, and Katniss loved her more and more each day.

When Mercy came downstairs, Katniss was at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal and her laptop in front of her; doing work before work actually started. She was a brand manager for a startup company and because it made good money that allowed she and Mercy to live the way they did, it was important to her. She brought her work home with her more often than not and typed away at her computer after Mercy had gone to bed. Especially when Mercy was over at Peeta's house, it was something to occupy her mind.

When the little girl came trotting down the stairs, she met her mother at the table and leaned her head on her shoulder. Katniss wrapped an arm around Mercy and kissed the top of her brunette, almost raven hair, and glanced over to see the outfit she'd picked for the day. She was wearing dark gray leggings and a cable-knit dark blue sweater that brought out the sapphire eyes that matched her father's. Katniss had found the sweater at a thrift store when Mercy was just a baby, and had always looked forward to the day she'd grow into it, so she favored it over any other shirt that Mercy owned.

The butt of her leggings drooped a bit, and Katniss gripped the stretchy waistband and yanked it up her daughter's small waist. Mercy fidgeted, but ultimately let her mother fix it.

Katniss's fingers crawled playfully up Mercy's side, over her arm, across her collarbones, until they landed over her heart. She flattened her palm over the little beats and shared a smile with her daughter, who pressed her forehead against Katniss's lovingly.

They would always have to watch out for complications with Mercy's heart. She was not anywhere close to being in the clear yet. There was always a chance that the aortic tube would narrow again, but they had options if that did happen.

"Strong and steady?" Katniss asked, moving her hand to smooth the pretty blue sweater over Mercy's shoulders.

"Steady and strong," Mercy said with a smile. "Can I have some cereal now, mommy?"

"Sure, babe. Then pack your bag, remember."

The two ate together and then Katniss watched Mercy pack her back painstakingly, checking and rechecking to make sure that she remembered everything. Once she was satisfied, she put her bowl away in the sink and they headed into the bathroom to brush their teeth together.

As usual, Mercy climbed on the counter so she could get a look at her whole body, making different poses in the mirror and smiling a toothy smile, her mouth overflowing with toothpaste.

"Don't get it on your shirt, crazy girl," Katniss said, spitting into the sink.

Mercy giggled wildly, wiping her mouth with both hands so it wouldn't drip. She spit, set her toothbrush down, and then pressed her foam-covered palms to the mirror to grin at herself again. Katniss rolled her eyes in good humor, even as two tiny handprints stayed behind.

When they pulled up to Oscar Mayer, Mercy's school, Katniss went around to the back and opened the door for her daughter. Having already climbed out of her car seat, Mercy started to run towards the open doors of the school when her pocket-sized hand sanitizer fell off the clip on her backpack. She didn't even notice it, but Katniss did.

"Mercy," she called after her daughter, but Mercy didn't hear. Katniss took to shouting. "Mercy!" She hadn't meant for her voice to sound so urgent, but it did.

Mercy spun around in a huff, looking irritated. Katniss waved her back and showed her what she had dropped.

"Honey, you need this," she insisted, and clipped it back on her backpack. "Don't let it fall again. Don't forget to use it after you wash your hands when you come inside from recess."

"I know, mommy," Mercy said with a sigh.

"Okay, I love you. Do good today, Cici-babe."

"I love you best, mommy," Mercy said, then hurried off.

Katniss sat in the parked car and watched her daughter until she disappeared into the school. She sighed and wished that she could stay by her side forever.

During her lunch break, her phone blared her ringtone, _Ride_ by Twenty One Pilots, and she checked the Caller ID. Across the screen, the name "Cato from Tinder" was printed, and she picked up.

"Hello?"

They had matched on Tinder two weeks ago. Katniss wasn't proud to say that, but when she was out for drinks with her best friend, Madge, she had convinced Katniss that she was going to die an old maid and needed to get back out there. Katniss vetoed going to bars and trying her luck, and only downloaded Tinder to shut Madge up. Cato was one of the only people in her matches, mostly because she was too picky. He had blonde hair and blue eyes, and she was nothing if not predictable.

He was nice enough. They had gone out for coffee last weekend while Mercy was at her father's house and they had had a good time.

"Hey, Katniss," Cato said. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"No," she said, picking at her salad. She was sitting in Whole Foods, enjoying her alone time away from work. "I'm just at lunch."

"Ah, I wish I would've known," he said. "Maybe I could've joined you."

She laughed lightly. "Yeah, maybe," she said, though she knew she would never have agreed.

"Let me make up for it. How about dinner tomorrow night?"

It was short notice, but Katniss didn't have a viable excuse to say no. Mercy was going to Peeta's tomorrow morning and by the evening, Katniss would be alone in her living room, watching old episodes of _The Office_.

"Sure," she said.

"Great," Cato replied. "I'll be there to pick you up at 9."

They said their goodbyes and Katniss couldn't quite tell if she was excited for the date, or if she was dreading it.

Since Saturday mornings were when Katniss dropped Mercy off at Peeta's, they always made Friday nights special by picking a movie to watch on Netflix and eating a special treat of popcorn and candy mixed together.

Mercy picked a movie called _Wish On a Star,_ a random selection from the Disney Channel Original movies from the 90s. Sometimes she just went through and found the cover art she liked best and went with it, and Katniss didn't mind. They rested against each other in the darkness of the living room, munching on their snack, and watched the movie all the way through.

When it was over, Mercy's ocean eyes were blinking slow and heavy but she was fighting to stay awake. "Mommy?" she peeped, snuggling into Katniss's side. Her nightgown was silky-smooth against her mother's skin.

"What?" Katniss answered.

"If you had a wish on a star like in the movie, what would you wish?"  
Katniss didn't need a moment to think, she had already wished on countless stars without Mercy's knowing. "For your heart to be all better for good," she said, kissing the top of her daughter's head and resting her lips there. "What about you?"

"I'd wish for…" she paused, and Katniss was surprised that her answer wasn't immediately the same. "I'd wish for all the kids with no mommies and daddies to have ones like magic. And for my friends at school and you and Daddy and me to never be sad. And for a baby brother."

Katniss felt her eyes grow hot with tears. "What about if your heart always stayed strong?" she asked. "I think that should be the top of your list. Before any of us, before you even think of anyone else."

"Yeah, maybe that's next," Mercy said, finding Katniss's hand and lacing her small fingers in with her mother's. "I'm sleepy now."

Katniss carried her daughter up to bed and tucked her in, and stayed next to her even after she fell asleep.

When Katniss pulled up to Peeta's place on Saturday morning, he was already watching and waiting. He stood up from the window seat where he'd been sitting, called out to Delly that _Mercy's here_ and then stood on the front porch to meet his daughter.

"Daddy," she called, barreling towards him. She crashed into his chest and he picked her up from the ground and twirled, and her little legs fanned out and spun with her.

"My girl," Peeta said, and kissed Mercy's ear. "Hey, Katniss."

Katniss flashed him a small smile and then set Mercy's backpack on the front step next to his feet where it landed with a heavy thud. "That girl doesn't know how to pack light," she said.

"Takes after her mother," Peeta said, and shifted Mercy to his hip. "You doing good?"

Katniss nodded and raised her eyebrows, planting her hands on her hips. "Yeah," she said, "Yep."

Then, Delly came out with a toothy grin plastered on her face. "Hi, everybody!" she said in a thin, bright tone.

"Hey, Delly," Katniss said.

"Katniss, you look fantastic as usual," Delly said, walking towards Katniss as she opened her arms. At the last second, Katniss turned her shoulders to the side to avoid the hug, and Delly played it off like she had never tried. The corners of Peeta's mouth turned up in a sly smile that he tried to keep hidden. "Hi, to you too, Merce!" Delly said, and squeezed the little girl's arm.

Mercy looked at the woman with hooded blue eyes. "My name is Mercy," she said, her voice forcibly low. "Or Cici. But only my mommy and my daddy can call me Cici."

There was a small, stagnant pause. Delly filled it with a strange little chuckle.

"Oh, well, right. I always forget. Hey, what do you say we watch _Frozen_ tonight? I was trying to think of something fun for us to do."

"I don't like _Frozen_ ," Mercy said, looking away from Delly and distracting herself with Peeta's hair. "I like _Pocahontas_."

"Well, then, we can watch whatever you want," Delly said, "how does that sound?"  
Mercy shrugged and avoided eye contact. Katniss was in pain over how hard Delly was trying and failing to connect.

After a moment, Delly looked to Katniss and cleared her throat. "Um, Katniss, I was hoping I could ask you something."

There was a long pause where Katniss realized Delly was waiting for permission to continue. She rolled her eyes inwardly. "Sure," she said, nonplussed.

"Is there any way maybe we can switch up the days a little bit next week, or whenever it works for you?" she asked, then took Peeta's bicep. "We've been dying to have a date night, and we're just not free during the weeknights, and we would never want to leave Mercy with a sitter during her time here…" Delly trailed off.

We, we, we. Katniss looked to Peeta and couldn't read his expression.

"So what are you trying to ask me, Delly?" Katniss said, purposefully provoking her.

"Could you just keep her next weekend?" Delly asked, "We haven't had a night just us in so long."

 _A night just us_.

"Well, if Peeta and our lawyers are okay with violating the custody agreement, then sure," she said, completely monotone.

Delly blinked at her quickly, obviously uncomfortable. "Oh, well, um…we've talked about it, and we could talk to them…"

"Alright, so I'll be back Monday morning to take her to school," Katniss said, cutting Delly off and pulling her keys out from her purse. "Call if you need anything, right? Cici, be good for your dad. Give me a kiss." She walked over to Peeta and set a hand on his shoulder as Mercy kissed her on the lips. "Have fun, you guys. Peeta, you know where I'll be."

The three of them watched Katniss drive away, and then Mercy laid her head down on her father's sturdy shoulder. "You feeling okay, Cici?" Peeta asked, walking inside after picking up her backpack. Delly lingered by them, studying Mercy for her answer.

"A little tired," Mercy said, punctuating the thought with a yawn.

"Well, I can fix that," Peeta said, "I was just making waffles! You wanna come help?"

Delly went back out to the yard to work on the garden, where she had been before Katniss pulled up, so Peeta and his daughter were in the kitchen by themselves. She crawled up onto the counter and helped him crack eggs and sift the flour, and as she worked he stole glances at her.

She looked more like Katniss with each passing day.

She had his eyes, that was true. But the color of her hair and skin were Katniss entirely, along with the frown that pulled her lips down as she concentrated.

His heart swelled as he watched his daughter painstakingly stir the waffle batter, using all of the strength in her one arm to get through the thick liquid. It was quiet in the kitchen, something it wouldn't be if Katniss were there, too.

But they had never known a life together that included Mercy. They had split when she was a tiny group of cells, they didn't even know that Katniss was pregnant when they decided to call things off.

The relationship came to an end when Katniss's sister died six years ago. Primrose was only 18, coming home from grad bash the night she graduated high school, a passenger in a car that was slammed into by a drunk driver. They hit a tree and the car turned into an accordion. Not one of the five people in the car walked away.

Katniss turned into a different person. She didn't want him around anymore. They broke up, and five months later she told him that she was four months pregnant.

One month after that, the doctors told them that their baby would be born dead.

But four months had passed and Mercy was born alive with her late aunt's first name as her middle. And now, they had a five-year-old with the biggest lust for life that Peeta had ever seen.

"What did you do in school this week, Cici?" Peeta asked, pressing the waffle iron down slowly.

Mercy tapped her chin in thought. "I had gym, Spanish, drama, and played outside lots," she said.

"It's getting cold out there," he said, "you wearing that new coat I got you?" Her mouth turned up in a sly grin and she shook her head slowly. "What? You're not? What are you talking about?" He feigned offense.

"Me and Mommy don't like it…" she started to giggle. "She got me a new one."

"Wow," Peeta said, raising his eyebrows. " _Wow_ …I see how it is. You and Mommy ganging up on me. I see how it is, I see now…"

" _Daddy_ ," Mercy laughed, pulling on his shirt.

"Oh, don't 'daddy' me, you didn't like my coat," he said. "You're no daughter of mine. Nope. Uh-uh."  
"Daddy!" she squealed, and threw her head back in laughter. Her raven hair fluttered around her face in curly tendrils that reminded Peeta so much of Katniss during the rare times she'd let her hair down from its braid. "Stop playing."

"Come here then, munchkin," he said, lifting her small body onto his hip to bring her to the table. "Let's eat."

Mercy didn't eat much; she just spent a while pushing it around. Her energy level seemed to have waned incredibly quickly. She could hardly keep her eyes open at the table, and it wasn't even lunchtime yet. Peeta hadn't known her to take naps for years, but that was what it looked like she needed.

"Hey, Cici," he said, as he cleaned up their plates. "How does a nap sound? You look so tired, sweetie."

She nodded sleepily and reached her arms up to be held. When he picked her up, he heard how quickly her breath was coming right next to his ear. He made a note of it in his mind, but didn't think much of it, especially after she let a few coughs go. It was just allergies; fall was ending and the air was changing.

He laid her down on the couch and she turned onto one side and fell asleep instantly, before he could even walk away. He knelt down and kissed the side of her head, his lips pressed to her hair that felt just like her mother's.

Katniss was just putting on her second high-heel when her phone rang from where it charged on her nightstand. She let it go, figuring it was Cato telling her that he was outside, and she'd find him out there herself in just a few moments. He could stand to wait.

She stood in front of the full-length mirror and studied her outfit. She was wearing a knee-length black pencil skirt and a black spaghetti-strap, V-neck shirt, leaving just a tiny strip of her belly showing. Her heels were a deep burgundy to offset the black, and her hair was left down in a spiraled ocean of curls.

Her phone rang again. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was 8:45, which meant that Cato was early and being incredibly pushy. She stomped over to her phone and read the Caller ID, only to see Peeta's name on the screen instead of her date's.

"Hello?"

Something about his voice didn't sound quite like him when he answered, and it made chills run up her spine. "Katniss," he said, "you need to come. It's Mercy."

Katniss hung up the phone without asking what was wrong. She didn't need to know, all she needed to do was get over to his house. Fast.


	2. Two

Katniss didn't even remember driving the five miles to Peeta's house in Bucktown, pulling up in front of his house, or throwing the car into park. Suddenly, she just appeared on his doorstep and burst through the door without knocking.

"Peeta?" she called, "Mercy?"

She saw Delly then, coming from the front room. "They're in the bathroom. Oh, Katniss…"

Katniss didn't stay to listen to the rest of what she had to say. She all but pushed past the woman and stormed the bathroom, where she found Peeta sitting with his back against the wall, Mercy in his lap, and a big bowl full of vomit on _her_ lap.

"Jesus Christ," Katniss said, "Peeta, tell me what's going on." She knelt down and pressed the back of her fingers to Mercy's forehead. "Holy fu-" she cut herself off before she could curse that heavily in front of her daughter. "She's burning up. She's so pale."

"She won't stop throwing up," Peeta said, and as if to make a point, more vomit spewed out of Mercy's mouth and into the bowl. It was in danger of overflowing.

Katniss's mind was racing. It could just be the flu. But with Mercy, nothing was ever that simple. It wasn't allowed to be.

"We need to take her in," she said. "I'll get a new bucket. You take her to my car."

They both rushed out of the bathroom and traded spots seamlessly once they got to the car. Peeta got in on the driver's side, forced the seat back, and pulled quickly out of the parking spot as Katniss held the dry-heaving little girl in her arms.

"How long has she been throwing up?" she asked, feeling her own heart beating a thousand miles an hour.

"She'd been so tired all day. She went down for a nap at-"

"A nap, Peeta?" Katniss asked, her voice accusatory.

"She was tired," he said, "it seemed like the best option."

"She hasn't taken a nap in…in years."

"I _know_ that," he said, taking a sharp left. "So it struck me as odd. She had no appetite. Her breathing's seemed weird to me, too, although I wasn't quite sure on that. And you see how pale she looks."

Katniss pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and clamped down on it to keep herself from crying. She couldn't remember a time in the recent years when she'd felt this scared.

At a red light, the car was silent until Peeta glanced into the rearview mirror and studied Katniss's attire. "Were you on a date?" he asked.

"Does it matter?" she snapped, without meeting his eyes. She had stood Cato up. She would never see him again.

Peeta didn't answer.

"Come on, come on," she muttered under her breath as he pulled up to the ER of Rush Children's Hospital. Mercy couldn't keep her eyes open anymore, whatever was wrong was getting worse. Katniss thought, much too late now, that they should've called an ambulance instead of driving here themselves.

Peeta parked the car and Katniss carried Mercy to the doors, and her daughter's body was scarily limp strewn across her arms. Katniss jiggled her and said her name in trying to get her to respond, but she wouldn't. Her breathing was shallow and quick. Katniss felt a looming sense of dread in the pit of her stomach.

Through the sliding doors, they were met with two doctors and a few nurses. They saw Mercy's condition and she was placed on a gurney immediately, one that both Katniss and Peeta followed down a long hallway.

"She has a heart problem," Katniss said, hearing the hysteria in her voice. She grappled for the doctor's arm that was closest to her once they got into an evaluation room and held it tight. "She had coarctation of the aorta, she had surgery when she was 3 days old to open up her valve, she's on Captopril, Furosemide, Metaprolol and Spironolactone."

Katniss dug furiously in her purse to find the pill bottles and then yanked them out.

"Here, here they are."

"Ma'am, you can hold onto those. I'd like to see them later, but for right now we need you to get out of the way." The doctor, whose nametag she could see read Dr. Stein, was firm and down-to-business. Her colleague had kinder eyes and was looking over at Katniss and Peeta like she wanted to envelop them in a hug as Dr. Stein lifted up Mercy's eyelids and shone a flashlight inside. Her nametag read Dr. Calloway, and it had ladybug stickers decorating it.

"We just need to do some tests," Dr. Calloway said, walking around Dr. Stein, who was pressing a stethoscope against Mercy's chest and writing down numbers furiously on a clipboard. "We'll know answers soon. We'll figure out what's wrong with your daughter."

Katniss was shaking. She only vaguely felt Peeta's strong grip find its way to the small of her back, anchoring her so she wouldn't collapse.

"Can I tell you…" she began, but her voice cracked. "Can I tell you her symptoms? Would that help you?"

Dr. Calloway nodded and led the two out into the hallway where they sat in a line of chairs.

"She has heart problems," Katniss said, her teary gray eyes peering back into the room that Mercy was in. "I can't lose her."

The doctor held one of Katniss's small hands with both of hers. "You're not going to."

"Dr. Calloway," Peeta began, and Katniss heard for the first time how terrified he sounded.

"You can call me Lizzie," she said.

"She was tired all day today. She has a fever. She's so pale, and before we got in the car, she'd been throwing up for at least a half hour straight. She only stopped when she passed out."

"She probably passed out from lack of fluids," Dr. Calloway said, "that's a good thing. We can fix that." She nodded surely. "I'm going to go back in there and talk to Dr. Stein about what you've said and we'll hook her up to an IV." She peeked back through the window. "Actually, it looks like she already has. You can come back in now."

They went back in the room and Katniss gravitated towards Mercy's bed. She knelt on the floor with her elbows on the stiff mattress and held Mercy's thin arm, the one without the IV. She looked up at Peeta and a couple tears drained from her eyes. "She looks so small," she said to him.

"We're going to keep her on fluids so her system can get replenished," Dr. Stein said, never looking up from her clipboard. "I'm ordering some bloodwork, a nurse should be in to get that soon, but this should stabilize her until then. Any questions?"

Katniss racked her brain. Suddenly, it was empty.

"Is she going to be okay?" Peeta asked.

"Right now, yes," Dr. Stein said. "When we know what's wrong with her, I can give you more details. Until then, we'll do our best to keep her stable."

The doctors left and Peeta and Katniss were left in a very quiet room with Mercy. The only sound was the heart monitor, beeping rhythmically.

Katniss looked over at Peeta to see him staring at his daughter, his periwinkle eyes full of worry. "Our girl," he said.

"I know," she said.

"I'm sorry," he admitted.

Katniss snapped her head to look at him. "Why are you apologizing?" she asked.

"I know you blame me. At least a little," he said, and when she didn't respond, continued with, "I know you, Katniss."

"I'm not blaming you," she said, "I just wish I would've been there."

He nodded. There was nothing left to say.

Peeta had fallen into a light sleep when he heard a soft voice come from the middle of the room. "Mommy? Daddy?" His eyes snapped open and he saw Mercy awake, her deep blue eyes blinking slowly. "Where am I?"

He rushed to her bedside and then lightly shook Katniss awake.

"Cici," Katniss breathed, holding their daughter's shin. "Oh, Cici."

"Where am I?" Mercy asked again.

"We're in the hospital," Katniss answered, just like Peeta knew she would. Mercy's eyes widened and her heart monitor sped up just slightly. "No, don't be scared. You got sick, and the doctors are going to figure out what's wrong and fix you up right away. Just like they always do."

Mercy touched the tender spot on her inner elbow and then winced. "The nurse took blood from you, that's all," Katniss said. "They're going to figure out what's wrong and make you better."

"It hurts," Mercy said, and Peeta gently moved her hand away from the strip of gauze on her elbow.

"I never like it when they take blood from me, either," Peeta said, as he leaned over and kissed Mercy's forehead. "It's scary, isn't it? Just be glad you weren't awake to feel the prick."

Mercy nodded, slowly agreeing with her father. Katniss looked on at the both of them and marveled at how easy Peeta was to be around, for both of them.

An hour or so later, Dr. Stein and Dr. Calloway came back with their clipboards in hand. They exchanged a glance, and then Dr. Calloway took the lead.

"We did spot some bacteria samples in the bloodstream," she said, meeting their eyes as best as she could. "Any amount tells us that we need to order an echocardiogram, we call it an echo, to see what's going on with that heart of yours, Mercy."

Mercy stared at the doctor with fear in her eyes. "My heart has germs?"

"We don't know anything for sure yet," Dr. Calloway said. "But when we go look at your heart on a big screen, then we will. And once we know, we can fix it. And that's the best thing that can happen, right?" Mercy nodded shakily, and then Dr. Calloway looked to Katniss and Peeta. "The echo should be ready in a little bit. We'll come and get you when it's time." She started to speak in lower tones. "The bacteria count in the blood was higher than we'd like to see. Like I said, any amount isn't necessarily a good sign, but her count was significant."

Peeta felt his pulse quicken and his mouth went instantly dry. "What does that mean?" he asked. Katniss had frozen beside him.

"We'll know for sure when the echo tells us."

"What do you _think_ it could be?" He knew she was thinking something. He could see it in her brown eyes.

"Her symptoms fall in line with a case of infective endocarditis," she said, and Peeta's face transformed into a frown.

"What the hell is that?" Katniss piped up, leaning forward. They were bunched by the door, out of Mercy's earshot. She had found something to watch on the TV.

"It's an infection in her heart. Bacteria and fungi can find its way into the bloodstream and then latch on, weakening the heart as the vegetations of fungi attaches and grows."

The room went deadly silent. "There's fungi growing on my daughter's heart?" Peeta asked.

Dr. Stein cut in. "Antibiotics will kill it. We need to see the echo to find out where we need to start. It's especially common in patients with previous heart problems. The heart is already weakened, and it invites the bacteria in."

"Please, don't get alarmed yet. We see more cases like this than you'd imagine. A nurse will be here in a bit to take her to the echo," Dr. Calloway said, and they left.

Peeta and Katniss left the room, staring at each other over crossed arms right outside the door. Peeta was the first to speak. "Fungi. Growing on her heart. Fungi."

Katniss shook her head. "I let this happen." She shifted her arms apart and lifted her hands to massage her temples, her eyes wide and her eyebrows raised. "I let it happen. I didn't watch her close enough, I didn't make her wash her hands enough. I didn't keep the house sterile enough. I always knew I should've homeschooled her…"

"Stop, stop," Peeta said, setting a hand on her shoulder. "It wasn't anyone's fault."

"Except that it was," Katniss insisted, "this could've been prevented. She wasn't born with fungi on her heart!"

There was a prickly silence between them, only broken up by Mercy's voice.

"Mama?"

Katniss left Peeta with a lasting look and went back inside the room to tend to their daughter.

When the doctors came back for the echocardiogram, Peeta and Katniss walked on either side of Mercy's wheelchair as they headed to the sonogram room. When they went inside, the nurse tried to help Mercy get situated, but Katniss took over. Peeta watched her, completely in her element, lift Mercy's twig-like legs up onto the bed and untie the strings on the chest of her hospital gown.

Peeta didn't remember Mercy's chest ever being so skinny. He could see the divots of her sternum through her skin and her ribs appeared clearly with every inhalation. He sat in the chair in the far corner and Katniss sat right by Mercy's head, holding her hand as the cardiac sonographer sat on the other side.

Mercy's grip was slack and sweaty inside Katniss's hand. She looked down at her daughter, who looked more exhausted than she'd ever seen her, and stroked her tiny hand with her thumb. The nurse dimmed the lights as the technician warmed up his machine and then squirted the gel onto Mercy's bony chest.

 _There's something wrong with your baby's heart._

The day came rushing back to her. She was in Mercy's place lying on the table, her shirt pushed up below her bra, and Peeta sitting stoically next to her. He hadn't taken her hand. They weren't together at that point, and weren't expressing affection toward each other.

The doctor hadn't told them until after. As they sat in the dark room, the ultrasound technician had only told them that they were having a girl. Katniss remembered smiling up at Peeta; a smile so big she felt like her face would crack right in half. They were going to have a daughter.

She couldn't resist taking his hand at that point. "A girl," he had whispered, and squeezed her fingers. The technician smiled and wiped the gel off of Katniss's stomach, sending the snapshots of the ultrasound to get printed.

She was sitting on the edge of a checkup table afterwards when they found out. Peeta was standing next to her, and the doctor, whose name she couldn't remember, was solemn.

 _There's something wrong with your baby's heart_.

It was too late to terminate. She wouldn't have done it, anyway.

 _I'm so sorry, Miss Everdeen_.

Her hands slowly found their way to her rounded belly and she held it loosely, feeling their baby girl kick. Katniss hoped she wasn't listening, although she knew that the baby always was. She spun like a ballerina when Katniss sang.

 _The baby likely won't make it to term. She will probably be stillborn in a few weeks_.

They had gone on to tell her that this had no effect on her future pregnancies, should they want to try again. She had stopped listening at that point. If that baby died, she would never try again.

She blinked her eyes hard and looked down at Mercy, who was studying the monitor in the corner of the room. "That's my heart?" she asked, and then pointed up to it.

Katniss gently lowered her arm so the picture wouldn't be ruined.

"Look at that thumper," Peeta said, pivoting around in his chair to get a better look. "Looks better than mine ever will. You make me jealous, Cici."

Mercy smirked and touched the slick gel on her chest once the sensor was pulled away. The sonographer wouldn't tell them anything, the results would get sent to the doctors and they would bring them in the morning.

When they got back to Mercy's room, it was quite obvious that the hospital had gone to sleep. The lights were dimmer, the sound of TVs quieter, and the mood softer. The air seemed cooler, too, and Katniss was still dressed in her date-night clothes. She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed up and down, attempting to make her goosebumps disappear.

"God, you must be freezing," Peeta said, noticing of course.

"Oh, I'm fine, really," Katniss said, "I'll be alright."

"Here," Peeta said, shedding his hoodie. He yanked it off from the back of the neck, and it just happened to pull his t-shirt underneath so a generous amount of his stomach showed. Katniss's eyes darted away as soon as she caught herself staring at the trail of blonde, almost invisible, hair on his belly. "I should've thought of it sooner. Take this."

"I couldn't," she said, waving it away. "You have to keep warm, too."

"Katniss," he laughed, "I'm not gonna get cold. You're small as hell and shivering. Take it, or I'm going to shove it on over your head. We both know you'll hate that."

She rolled her eyes and took it from him begrudgingly. The sleeves hung far past her hands and the waist reached her thighs, but it definitely kept her warm. As she slipped it on, the overwhelming smell of Peeta washed over her and she breathed him in in droves. She hadn't been this immersed in him for _years_.

She shook her head to clear it. Mercy was sick. Why was she even thinking remotely about how much she missed Peeta's smell? Stupid.

The little girl's eyes were drooping when she got hooked back up to her fluids, and both Katniss and Peeta sat on her bed on either side of her to say goodnight. She snuggled against the large hoodie of Peeta's that Katniss was wearing, comforted by her father's smell in the same way that her mother was.

"You're doing so good," Peeta said, and kissed Mercy's hair.

"We're so proud of you," Katniss said, and looked over at Peeta. They had never put their daughter to bed together, not once. It was a strange, beautiful feeling.

"Go to sleep and get strong," Peeta whispered, and Mercy's eyes drifted completely shut.

"I love you, Mercy P," Katniss said, and kissed her. She squeezed their daughter's hand and then rested her cheek on the top of her head.

"I love you best," Mercy murmured, already halfway gone.

Only when Peeta shifted did she realize how cramped the bed had become. She lifted her head and slipped off at the same time as he did.

"A little small for all three of us," he said, and returned to his chair against the wall. Katniss said next to him in the only other seat available in the room.

She didn't want to lay with Mercy. She was afraid that she'd fall asleep and accidentally rip something out of her.

"Is she going to be okay, Peeta?" Katniss asked, worry shaking her voice.

He looked at her solemnly with those pensive blue eyes. "She's always been a fighter," he said. He was right. "She'll get through this no problem. Maybe she doesn't even have it, we don't know. And like they said, it's not as scary as it sounds."

His words were thin. Insecure. He was just as scared as she was.

"She can get through this," Katniss said, more to herself than to him.

Then she yawned. "You should get some sleep, K," Peeta said. "It's been an insane day."

Katniss sighed. "I doubt I could."

"She's going to be just fine," Peeta assured her. "She's sound asleep now, don't worry. A nurse will be in in a few hours to take her vitals, and we'll wake up then. See, look, if you just lean back," he demonstrated in his own chair, scooting his butt forward so he had enough of the back for a headrest, "it's more comfortable. You can kind of spread out."

She followed his lead and kicked off her heels. As soon as she closed her eyes, she fell right to sleep.

Katniss woke with a start a few hours later, drawn out of her slumber by the sounds of the nurse taking Mercy's vitals. The nurse left soon after Katniss opened her eyes, and she was about to fall back to sleep until she felt something strange.

She looked down at her legs and saw Peeta touching her. He was by no means small; spread out in his uncomfortable chair, his head lolled back, his mouth slightly open, his left hand almost touching the floor and the right hand situated firmly on her thigh.

He had a good grip on her, even as he slept. His fingertips reached all the way to her inner thigh, his fingers spread out like he was gripping a football. In fact, she had seen him grip a football in this way.

She knew it was just accidental. He was sound asleep, and he always needed to be touching someone when he was asleep because of the nightmares he was plagued with. She was very familiar with that fact. She knew it was for security reasons only, but she couldn't stop herself from heating up as she remembered the last time he held onto her like he needed her.

She had half a mind to move him off, but she closed her eyes, pretended she never saw, and let herself get lost in her own head.

They were coming home from her old work's Christmas party, in the back seat of an Uber. An overly-friendly coworker had been flirting with her all night, and she had been entertaining the conversation because she felt bad for him. The guy had no friends. It was a very Peeta move to be so kind, but he couldn't stand it.

In the car, his hand found its way to her thigh, which was covered by a much shorter skirt than the one she wore in the hospital room. She had on a black bandage dress that barely covered her when she sat, and as he held her thigh – encased securely in tights – his grip edged closer and closer to the pulsing center of her.

She was hiding her arousal, trying to egg him on. He didn't get riled up easily, so when he did, she liked to draw it out for as long as she could.

When they got inside the townhouse, he was quietly fuming.

"What's wrong?" she asked, kicking off her pumps.

"Does that guy think he has a chance with you or something?" he spewed, like the words had been waiting for provocation. "Because you are so out of his league. Even if we weren't together, he seriously has a fucked-up view of himself if he thinks that _you_ and _him_ …" he rolled his eyes and let out a disgusted sigh.

"Peeta," she had said, walking up to him noiselessly with her tights-covered feet. She rested her hands on his shoulders and drew her body close to his, rubbing against him like a cat. "Don't get so worked up about it. He doesn't matter."

"You were kind of giving him the idea that he did have a chance," Peeta growled.

"I was being _nice_ ," she said, grinning, "you taught me that. Remember?"

"Now I wish I never had," he said, wrapping his arms around her and taking two generous handfuls of her ass. "God, that bothered the fuck out of me." He shook his head again and clenched his teeth. His jaw tightened, and the space between her legs throbbed with impossible want for him.

She never knew his jealousy could turn her on so much.

When they kissed, it was no sweet, innocent peck. It seemed like Peeta wanted to devour her in the best way, to prove that she was his and only his. Katniss loved every second of it.

He lifted her by the backs of her thighs and set her on the granite island in the middle of the kitchen, swiping all of the stray items onto the floor before lying her down on top of it.

He pulled her tights off quickly, crumpling them into a ball and chucking them into the sink after they were off, and then shoved her dress up around her waist. Without exchanging any words, he yanked her hips forward, hastily unbuttoned his pants, and entered her without any warning.

She would never say it out loud, but the rough, forceful Peeta – the Peeta that left fingerprint bruises, purple hickies and sore bones – was a treat once in a while.

He was gentle mostly all of the time. To see him like this, practically transformed into a different person, overwhelmed her with desire.

As he pounded into her roughly, the only sound in the room was skin against skin and her desperate moans. He held on tight to her hips and she spread her knees further, extending her arms above her head so her ribcage lifted.

Peeta dug his fingernails into her thighs, which caused a sharp jolt of pain to travel up her spine, but she reveled in it.

"Show me, Peeta," she said, catching her breath the best she could even as he fucked it out of her. "Show me that I'm all yours."

Her words seemed to ignite something entirely new within him, because what she thought had been his highest level a moment before was nothing compared to the power which he escalated. She saw stars at the corners of her eyes as he filled her, pushing himself inside her to the hilt, thrusting against her with every ounce of muscle he possessed.

"Oh, _Peeta_ ," she moaned loudly, practically screaming. She came before he did, and he lifted her from the counter without separating their bodies, holding her up by her ass and coming inside her as they stood.

When they separated, the old Peeta seemed to make himself known again. His face lost the angry blush and the embers had disappeared from his eyes. He pulled her dress down and smoothed it over her butt to cover her again, and then pressed sweet kisses to her mouth, jaw and neck.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked.

She held his head in her hands and smiled into his hair. "You never could," she said.

Now, in the hospital room with Peeta's territorial hand on her thigh and Mercy asleep just feet away, she tried to force that racy memory away. They were different people back then with entirely different lives. Everything had changed since then. Years ago, they were horny kids with nothing better to do than fall in love and fuck each other senseless. Now, they each had jobs, other love interests, and a very sick daughter.

Life before was trivial in comparison.


	3. Three

When the two doctors came in the next day, they didn't need to say a word to express that it wasn't good news they were delivering. Their faces said it all.

"Mr. and Mrs. Everdeen, can we speak to you in the hallway, maybe?" Dr. Calloway asked.

Once they were out of the room, Katniss cleared her throat. "We're not married. Mercy has my last name. I'm Everdeen. He's Mellark."

"Oh, oh, I'm sorry," the doctor said. "My apologies."

"It's fine. It happens all the time," Peeta said, glaring at her for picking at something so small. "What did you find out? What's wrong with Mercy?"

He glanced back at their little girl through the window. She was watching them, her eyes round and wondering.

"We went over the echo extensively this morning," Dr. Stein said, flipping through the papers on her clipboard before looking back up at them. She met Katniss's eyes, then Peeta's. "Your daughter does, in fact, have a serious case of infective endocarditis."

Katniss's knees went weak and she stumbled against Peeta, but he caught her by the elbow and held her up for support. Her heart was racing, she couldn't catch her breath, and her vision was blurred at the corners. She felt like she was about to pass out, but she pushed against it.

"She…" Katniss breathed, "she what?"

"Infective endocarditis," Dr. Calloway said this time, gentler. "It's when bacteria find their way into the bloodstream and then attach to the heart, forming what we call vegetations of fungi." She held up Mercy's heart echo and pointed to a few small, black masses with her finger. "That's what these are. It's possible for them to break up and spread throughout the blood, which in Mercy's case, they have. But that ended up being why we were able to catch it in the sample she gave us." She swallowed, her brown eyes flitting back and forth between either parent. "Her case is…with lack of a better term, advanced. She is especially at risk because of her heart problems in the past, so it's a good thing that you brought her in when you did."

"What are you going to do?" Katniss asked. Peeta's arm was still wrapped around the small of her back. "How is…how are you going to help her?"

Dr. Stein stepped back in. "Antibiotics. Through an IV, we're going to inject a few different antibiotics to see which one fights off the bacteria the best. Once we find the one that works, we'll put her on a regular dose of it."

The doctor's words calmed her, but only slightly.

"Is she going to die?" Katniss asked bluntly.

"Infective endocarditis is more common than you'd think," Dr. Calloway said. "People live through it every day. You brought her to the right place. You have the best cardiothoracic doctor in Chicago right here."

Katniss met Dr. Stein's eyes – so brown they were almost black. Thunder suddenly crashed outside, and rain began pattering against the windows.

"You can fix our little girl?" she asked.

"I'm going to do everything I can," Dr. Stein said.

"Will you tell her?" Peeta asked the two women. "I just feel like…like you'd do a better job than we would."

The doctors agreed, and Katniss and Peeta followed them in the room and listened as they explained Mercy's prognosis to her in a child's terms. Mercy watched them with a heavy gaze, and once they were done speaking, looked over to her parents with alarm written all over her face.

"You're going to be just fine, Cici," Peeta said, walking over to kneel by her bed and stroke her hair from her forehead. "This is nothing, right? When you were a baby they opened you up on a table and sliced your heart wide open. Compared to that, this is nothing. Absolutely nothing."

Mercy didn't say a word, she just stared at her father for reassurance. Katniss could hardly handle the expression on her little face.

"Thank you," Peeta said to the doctors, looking away from his daughter.

"We'll be back soon for the first round of antibiotics," Dr. Calloway said, and then placed a warm hand between Katniss's shoulder blades. "I am so sorry," she murmured softly. Words meant for a mother.

Katniss looked up at the doctor and felt the bitter taste of resentment rise in her throat. "Please don't touch me," she said, and shook Dr. Calloway's hand off.

"Katniss…" Peeta sighed.

She ignored him and sat on Mercy's bed, facing away from everyone. In the back of her mind, she heard Peeta apologize for her.

A little while later, they came in to administer the first round of antibiotics through Mercy's IV. To help her shortness of breath, tubes had been inserted up her nose, too, and since then she had started breathing much easier.

When the doctors left, Katniss sat with her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. Peeta was standing by the window, staring at the view of the city spread out before the hospital.

"Am I going to die?"

Both of their heads snapped over to Mercy and they saw her crying. Katniss jumped up from her chair and Peeta was at her side in an instant, stroking her tiny wrist with this thumb. Katniss climbed into bed next to their daughter and held her small body against her chest, avoiding the tubes connected to her as best as she could.

"No, baby, no," Katniss said, tucking Mercy's head under her chin. "You're going to live until you're so, so old. You're going to grow up into a great lady and be whatever you want to be." She petted Mercy's hair and fumbled with her words, desperately wanting to change the subject else she would start crying herself. "What do you want to be? Huh? What do you want to be when you get big?"

Mercy was silent. Peeta cut in. "Maybe a superhero?" he asked, still holding her hand.

Mercy shook her head. "Tinkerbelle," she peeped, her voice still bogged down as she cried into Katniss's chest where the tears rolled down her mother's skin.

"You can be Tinkerbelle, you can be anything," Peeta said.

Mercy sniffled. "I want to be pretty like Mommy, too, when I'm bigger," she said, holding a fistful of Katniss's skirt. Katniss still hadn't changed and she was beyond uncomfortable, but there were more important things on her mind.

"You're already there," Katniss said, "way more, actually. Come on now, Cici-girl. You know I'm an ugly old toad."

Peeta scoffed. Katniss ignored him.

"Ribbit," Katniss said, and poked Mercy's belly with her fingertips. "Ribbit, ribbit, croak." She deepened her voice and puffed out her cheeks, and a giggle finally found its way out of the little girl. "I knew that ugly little toad would make you laugh."

"We love you, Cici," Peeta said, tucking her hair behind her ears.

"I love you best," Mercy said back.

Then she drew in a big breath and then coughed violently, lying back when she was finished. It was a side effect of her weakened heart, and a tiring one at that. Katniss stayed on Mercy's bed even as her eyes closed, and then looked over to Peeta.

"Have you talked to Delly?" she asked quietly, running Mercy's hair through her fingers.

He shook his head. "I didn't think to," he admitted. "It's been too crazy." There was a pause. "Have you talked to whoever your date was?"

Katniss narrowed her eyes at him. "No. And I'm not going to. He doesn't matter." Her voice was stern, irritated. Peeta backed off.

"Do you want to go get some coffee from the café while she sleeps?" he asked, standing up from the floor with a bit of difficulty. Her joints seemed creaky from all the sitting they'd been doing.

Katniss felt how heavy her eyelids were and how her body protested when she stood up from the bed. She definitely needed the caffeine. "Yeah, sure," she agreed, and slipped on a pair of hospital slippers instead of the high-heels she had come in. Her feet were beyond sore at that point.

They left Mercy's room in matching strides and found their way to the elevator. It felt strange, being together without their daughter. Mercy was their common denominator; Katniss couldn't remember a time since she was born when that they had been together without her.

They didn't speak on the elevator ride down. Katniss was still wearing Peeta's sweatshirt, her hands tucked into the sleeves, and she rubbed the fabric between her fingers in the silent space. When they got to the café, there was no line so they walked right up to the counter.

Peeta smiled at the barista, who proceeded to blush and practically melt to the floor from just his eye contact. Katniss rolled her eyes and bristled, then crossed her arms over her chest.

Peeta ordered and Katniss zoned out. She only tuned back in when she realized he was speaking to her.

"Right, K?" he asked, "You still get a small mint mocha, an extra pump of chocolate and an extra shot of espresso, hold the whipped cream?"

She was floored. How many years had elapsed and he still remembered her order exactly? She nodded, still caught off guard.

When they received their drinks, he sipped his and made a satisfied sound. Hers was good, too.

"How did you remember my drink?" she asked, walking slowly next to him as they headed back to the elevator.

He shrugged. "Muscle memory. Like riding a bike." And then he gave her a smile that seemed so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness that unexpected warmth rushed through her.

The next day, the hospital started to decorate for Christmas. It was mid-December, and the first snow was due to come any day. As time passed, Mercy repeatedly turned on the Weather Channel to watch the forecast and see if snow was anywhere in the near future.

One of the antibiotics was working. She had started to get some of her personality back.

"How are you feeling, Cici?" Peeta asked, interlacing his fingers together to stretch his strong arms above his head. He felt Katniss's eyes on him, practically burning into his skin.

"Good!" she said enthusiastically, a big smile plastered on her face. Then, she leaned back against her pillow to catch her breath. That little action reminded both Peeta and Katniss that she wasn't going to be back to normal for a while, no matter how much she may seem like it on the surface.

"That's good to hear," he said, and ran his fingers through his hair. It was greasy; he needed a shower, and he could tell even from across the room that Katniss was uncomfortable in her clothes. She was still in the date-night outfit that she'd rushed over to his house in; and every time he looked at her dressed like that knowing it had been for someone else, he felt so jealous he could hardly see straight.

He knew that his jealousy wasn't warranted. They had been broken up for years and were functioning fine as co-parents to Mercy.

He had to admit, though, after almost 48 hours straight spent with her, Katniss had almost completely taken over his mind. He couldn't stop reliving their memories together. The nostalgia of their old life together was doing its best to shove Delly out, and so far it was doing a hell of a job.

Peeta watched her scratch her head. She had a scowl on her face which wasn't unusual, but for once he could empathize.

A little while later, after Mercy switched to the Weather Channel for about the tenth time, Dr. Calloway came in. "Hi, Mercy!" she said cheerfully, and sat down in a chair right next to her bed. The two had grown close; Mercy definitely had a singular trust with this doctor that she hadn't shown with anyone else in the hospital. She took after her mother that way, although Katniss would never gravitate toward someone like Dr. Calloway.

She reminded Peeta of Delly; he had to admit, her personality was a bit exhausting.

"So I have this new magic medicine for you, Mercy," Dr. Calloway said, "I'm just going to put the fairy dust right into your IV and it's going to make you very sleepy, but it's going to help get those bad guys right off your heart."

Dr. Calloway looked between Peeta and Katniss. Peeta tried to keep his expression open and neutral, but Katniss was frowning for no apparent reason. They had discussed this medication already, earlier in the day. It was anti-fungal, since some of the vegetations on Mercy's heart had tested positive for being fungal alongside the bacteria. It wasn't a good sign, he knew that much, but they were taking steps to counteract them.

"I don't wanna go to sleep," Mercy pouted, sticking her lower lip out.

Katniss stood up from her chair just as Peeta did, but he sat back down and let her take the lead. She sat on Mercy's bed and held her hand, then leaned forward and kissed their daughter's forehead. "We'll be here when you wake up," Katniss said, in a voice that she reserved only for Mercy. Peeta reveled in hearing it, even though it wasn't meant for him. It was a whole different side of her; softer, kinder, motherly.

"I want to stay up and play," Mercy insisted, and Peeta gave Dr. Calloway the nod to inject the medication into the IV. Mercy watched it go in and accepted it with a sigh, and when the remote dropped from her hand with a clatter onto the floor, they knew she was out.

Dr. Calloway lingered. "She'll be gone for the rest of the night now," she said, picking up Mercy's chart from the table at the foot of her bed. "You two should go home. Get a change of clothes, eat real food, catch some decent rest." Katniss started to protest, but the doctor actually cut her off. "It'll be better for Mercy if you do. If you come back rejuvenated by tomorrow morning when she's up, she'll thank you." Dr. Calloway sighed empathetically. "You two just look really, really tired."

"We are," Peeta said. Katniss opened her mouth, probably to protest his speaking on her behalf, but ended up not saying a word.

"Just think about it," the doctor said, and then left the room.

The two met eyes and had a conversation before they even opened their mouths.

"You've been in that outfit too long," Peeta stated bluntly, "it's got to be way past uncomfortable by now."

He could see that she had no argument.

"And I need a shower, you could practically cook fries with the grease on my hair," he said, and saw her stifle a giggle. "So come on, it's okay for us to go. Mercy won't even know. You can bring her a few toys from home. She'd be really excited about that."

"You're right," Katniss said, and Peeta clutched at his heart.

"Wait, what?" he sputtered, "what did you just say?" He hurried across the room and pressed the backs of his fingers to Katniss's forehead as she sat in her chair, shoulders slumped, rolling her eyes. "Are you sick? Should I call the doctor back in here? I'm really worried about you, Katniss…you must really not be feeling well to have said what I think you just said…"

She swatted him off with a smirk playing at her lips. "Fuck off," she muttered, and slipped into her heels. As she swung her purse over her shoulder, she said, "God, these shoes hurt like hell."

As they walked out of the hospital, the sky was overcast and threatening snow.

"I hope she doesn't sleep through the first snow," Katniss said, squinting upwards. "You know, if you just want to take my car back to your house, I can take the bus."

Peeta scoffed. "Don't be stupid, we'll stop at your house together, then pick up my car and drive back here separate. Come on," he said, and started to walk in the direction of the car. "Come on!" he urged, when Katniss hardly budged.

She gave in. With another roll of the eyes and a few more mutters under her breath, she followed him to her car.

He drove to her house without even having to think about it, though he'd only been there a handful of times. The place they had once lived in together was in Evanston about 12 miles away, a little townhouse meant for the college kids that they had been. When they split up, they broke their lease and both found new places.

Katniss had found the perfect house for herself and Mercy. It was a walkup in Lincoln Park right across from the local college with a gate blocking off the front stairs. The ceilings were high and open with beautiful hardwood floors and big windows that let plenty of light in.

After walking up the steps, Katniss unlocked the front door and kicked off her heels first thing, leaving them in a haphazard little pile by the mat. Peeta noticed the smell – it wasn't an exact scent he could put his finger on, but it smelled like home.

"Are you hungry?" Katniss asked, opening the refrigerator door towards him. On the stainless steel door, there was a crinkled piece of paper with M-E-R-C-Y spelled out with finger paint in rickety handwriting. "Oh, do you like that?" Katniss asked after she noticed him looking at it, closing the door a bit so she could look too. "That was from the other day at school. She's getting big, Peeta..."

"Isn't it weird to think about?" he asked, taking an apple as she offered one to him. He hopped up on the counter and took a big bite of it, and she stood with her elbow rested on his leg. They ate in comfortable silence for a moment, until he continued his thought. "Being in the hospital, it brings back a lot of memories."

She nodded. "I know. That's what I don't like."

"She made it out once before when the odds were stacked a lot higher, though," Peeta pointed out. "This is a breeze."

"I know you're right," Katniss said, "but that's our baby. That's our only girl."

"I know, K," he said, then kissed the side of her head while holding onto the other side with his hand. It was a habitual gesture; he hadn't even thought it through before doing it. She didn't seem to mind, though, in fact she leaned more of her weight against him.

After she finished her apple, Katniss went upstairs to shower, change clothes and gather some more to bring to the hospital. Peeta lingered in the living room, sitting in the overstuffed armchair that usually stayed vacant. He flicked on the TV and saw that it was open to Netflix, the list full of shows that Katniss had loved for years. _Bones_ , _LOST_ , _Grey's Anatomy_ , _The Office,_ still after all this time. He clicked on _The Office_ , picking up wherever she had left off somewhere at the end of season 5, and was only a little bit through the episode when she came back downstairs with wet, sweet-smelling hair and a duffel bag thrown over her shoulder.

"Don't tell me you're re-watching this damn show for what – the fifteenth time now?" he joked.

She smacked his shoulder, facing the TV. "Shut up. I like it, there's nothing wrong with that."

"You just watch it because of that weird thing you have for Andy," Peeta said. He had never been a fan.

"Whatever. You know Jim will always be my favorite," Katniss said, and Peeta's cheeks flushed. When they had watched it together years ago, she had always compared him to Jim. He had no idea if she even remembered that, probably not. She ran a strand of his hair through her fingers and raised her eyebrows. "You can take a shower here, you know," she said. "I'll finish up this episode. The bathroom is straight down the hallway when you go up the stairs. Use the light blue towel hanging on the door. It's Mercy's, but mine is wet.

He grumbled a bit, but went along. He knew his hair was greasy and his body was grubby. He got in the shower and noticed that all of her soaps had stayed the same, only now they included L'Oreal No Tears shampoo in a blue bottle shaped like a fish. He smiled at Mercy's silly shampoo, cracked the lid and sniffed it. It smelled exactly like her.

When he got out of the shower, he put his dirty clothes back on and then ran his tongue over his teeth. "Hey, do you have an extra toothbrush I can borrow?" he called down the stairs. He could hear her laughing at _The Office_ , so it took her a second to answer.

"What?" she shouted.

He rolled his eyes. "I said, do you have an extra toothbrush I can borrow?"

The response time was slow again, and he heard her get up from the chair he had just been sitting in and walk over to the foot of the steps. "What?" she asked again.

"Jesus Christ, did you go deaf?" he asked.

"Peeta, I can see right up your towel, I hope you know," she said, and then mimicked her hands like a camera and pretended to take a picture. Flustered, he tucked the material between his legs and backed away from the top step. "Calm down, nothing I haven't seen before," she said under her breath. "And the toothbrush? Yeah, I set the orange one out on the sink for you. You're the worst at being prepared," she said lightly, and then turned back towards the living room.

He brushed his teeth and went downstairs. She shut the TV off and stood up, taking in a deep breath. "You smell like me," she said, and then laughed. "What would your brothers say?"

He rolled his eyes. "Nothing intelligent."

She giggled as she picked up the duffel bag, though he took it from her as she tried to heave it onto her shoulder. She didn't protest. "You know, I always knew," she said as she leaned against the kitchen counter, seemingly buying time.

"Knew about what?"

"That whole contest that you, your brothers, and Finnick all had."

His heart dropped to his stomach. Even he had forgotten about that stupid competition.

"You know the one…where you guys would tally up who made their girlfriend come more times on nights you had sex." Her eyes were alight with mischief now. "Why do you think I made it so hard for you the whole time it went on? Finnick told Annie, and you know she told me everything."

"Jesus, K," Peeta said, massaging his temples, "I got dead last because you outsmarted me."

"Does it surprise you at all?" she taunted, then slipped on a pair of running shoes. She was in skintight yoga pants and an athletic tank top now, with her hair thrown into a long, messy braid down her back. He liked her best this way. She laughed as she said, "I hardly even let you touch me."

"I _knew_ you were holding back. All that stuff that usually made you…" he trailed off, not knowing what was safe territory to talk about and what wasn't. They weren't together anymore. He didn't know if talking this candidly was allowed. "Yeah."

"Yep. Then you got me pregnant and we broke up, classic love story." She laughed again, but Peeta couldn't force himself to. A heavy, stagnant silence filled the kitchen until she spoke again.

"Oh, it's Sunday, Peeta," she said, one hand on the front door handle as she turned back to him. "You can't forget to TiVo _Downton Abbey_ when we stop at your house."

"You remember that?" he asked, flabbergasted. She was the only person in the world who knew that _Downton Abbey_ was his guilty pleasure.

"Like riding a bike," she said, and locked the door behind them.

Katniss situated herself in the passenger seat, feeling lighter than she had in a while. She felt like she was reunited with her best friend, the one person who knew everything about her and the person with whom she shared the greatest part of her life.

The ride to Peeta's house wasn't long, and when they pulled up to the walkup she saw Delly's tiny Subaru tucked into a parking spot in front. She had almost forgotten about her.

"I'll just wait in here, then," Katniss said, pressing her back against the seat.

She watched him follow where her eyes had been: Delly's car. He was practically a mind reader when it came to her, he always had been. "Oh, don't be like that," he said, "you're coming in. Delly likes you, if she found out you were out here she'd force you to come in anyway." He unbuckled his belt and then pressed the button for hers. "Katniss, just come."

"Those words sound familiar," she said mischievously. "I wouldn't do it then, either."

"Shut the fuck _up_ ," he laughed, and she watched his eyes crinkle at the sides just like Mercy's did when she smiled.

She ended up following him inside. Right when the front door opened, Delly was right there throwing herself into Peeta's arms. Katniss stepped back, leaned against the wall, and looked towards the floor.

"Where have you been?" Delly shrieked, and Katniss resisted the urge to cover her ears. "I mean, I do know where you've been, but I've been worried sick, you haven't called…I called the hospital and they wouldn't tell me anything, your phone kept going to voicemail…"

"It died," Peeta said, "Dell, I'm sorry. Things got crazy."

Delly peered around him, her eyes wide with fright. "Where's Mercy?"

Even though Delly had been spending weekends with Mercy and Peeta for about a year now, Katniss still didn't like hearing her daughter's name in Delly's mouth.

"Still at the hospital," Katniss answered.

"Oh, is she okay?" Delly frantically asked.

"She's doing well. Peeta, if you want to tell her what all happened, go right ahead." Katniss's demeanor had turned on a dime, and she knew it. She didn't do anything to change it.

Peeta explained in light detail Mercy's condition, and Delly covered her mouth as she started to cry. Katniss closed her eyes just so she could roll them. Delly barely knew Mercy. Katniss hadn't even properly cried, Delly hardly had the right.

"I'm just glad she's going to be okay…" Delly whimpered, and then gave Peeta a big hug that she lingered on for what seemed like hours. "Is she coming home soon, then?"

"No, she's staying," Katniss cut in, "Her antibiotics need to be administered for four weeks. After that, if she's strong enough to come home, she'll come to my house."

"Four weeks?" Delly asked, looking up at Peeta with wide, green eyes. He nodded. "Are you going to stay there for that long?"

"I am," Katniss said, inserting herself yet again.

"I'll probably go to work in a few days, but then to the hospital after," Peeta said, "I'm her dad. She needs me."

"No, no, I know that," Delly said, her voice weakened. "I know that." She sighed, and her expression changed minutely. "I just wish you would've called. That's all."

"I'm sorry, Dell," he said, and kissed her forehead.

Katniss looked away, but couldn't hold her tongue. She felt a searing sensation in her gut - one that reminded her a lot of jealousy - hearing the nickname Peeta used for Delly. For some stupid reason, she thought she'd been the only one with a nickname. "Calling must have slipped his mind when we thought our child was dying. Sorry," she said under her breath.

Delly sputtered for words, but came up with nothing.

Peeta, as usual, covered. "I'll do better, all right?" he said, smoothing down her flaxen hair. "I need to grab some stuff and then get back though, okay? Mercy will be waking up soon."

A boldfaced lie. Katniss had heard just as he had that Mercy wouldn't wake up until the next morning. She felt a small sense of sick victory.

"I'll be right back down, all right, K?" Peeta said, directing his words towards Katniss, and she nodded. As he left up the stairs, she was left in the foyer with Delly; an awkward silence sitting between them.

"I'm so sorry this happened to Mercy," Delly said, and Katniss wished she would stop saying Mercy's name.

"Thank you," Katniss said.

"Can you tell her I said so?" Delly asked, "I wish I would've known sooner, I would've made her a card or maybe a little blanket. You know what, I think she has a blanket here that she might-"

"That's okay," Katniss said firmly. "I packed plenty of her toys and blankets in a bag in the car." She forced a curt smile. "She has enough. But thanks."

Delly didn't quite know what to say, that was obvious. Luckily, she didn't have to think long because Peeta came trotting down the stairs just seconds later.

"Ready to go?" he said breathlessly, tossing a small bag onto his back. Katniss nodded, and then lowered her eyes to look at his t-shirt. It was a worn-out, old Chicago Bears one that used to be white but was now a disgusting shade of faded ivory.

"Jesus Christ, Peeta," she sighed, "you know I hate that shirt. That has to be the worst shirt you have ever owned."

He laughed and began to usher her out the front door with a hand between her shoulder blades.

"Oh, I love the Bears," Delly said, and then cupped Peeta's chin in her hands as she stood on tiptoes to kiss him. Katniss stalked out the door before she could witness anything else. "Keep me updated, okay, honey?"

"Of course," Peeta said, and then walked out the entryway to join Katniss in the driveway.

"Bye, Peeta," Delly called after them, standing in the doorway. "I love you."

Peeta smiled back at her and returned the sentiment.

Katniss followed Peeta's gaze and looked back, too. Delly's face was nearly unrecognizable; drawn and tight, all sense of cheerfulness disappeared.

Once Delly shut the front door and they were standing alone in front of the car, Katniss gnawed on her lower lip. "Sorry about the whole shirt comment," she said.

Peeta laughed. "I'm sorry, too, because I totally remembered how much you hate it, and that may or may not be why I'm wearing it right now."

She smacked his chest. "Damn you," she said, then sighed. "That was bad. That was why I didn't want to go inside, Peeta."

"What?"

"Don't play dumb. She thinks that something is…I don't know, happening with us."

Peeta scoffed. "Come on."

"Don't tell me to come on. You know it. I know you saw her, too."

"Okay, yeah, maybe…but, she's wrong. So what? She'll see for herself."

Katniss widened her eyes, but didn't respond.

"Don't even pretend like you despise this shirt, by the way," Peeta said, nudging her. "You used to wear it to Saturday yoga all the damn time."

"Well, okay, but only because it was soft and I could bend in it," Katniss said, shaking her head. "Doesn't mean it's not disgusting."

"Yeah, you sure were bendy," Peeta said, giggling lightly.

"You're nasty," Katniss said, and socked his shoulder. "I'm hungry. Do you want to order a pizza?"

Peeta pulled out his phone. "The hospital doesn't allow outside food, though,"

"We'll go pick it up and bring it back to my house. We need to finish up that episode of _The Office_ anyway. But don't call-"

"Italian Pizza Kitchen, right. Because their sauce sucks."

Katniss nodded. He still remembered.

"Riding a bike," he said, without prompting.

"Meet you at home," Katniss said off-handedly, and only realized the gravity of her statement once she was alone in her own car, headed back to her house with Peeta following close behind.

"This pizza smells _so_ good," Peeta said, pushing the front door open with his shoulder. Katniss followed close behind, her mouth set in a pensive, straight line. "No comment from the peanut gallery?" he asked over his shoulder.

She sighed, leaning her elbows down onto the island as Peeta set the pizza box on it. "Just thinking about…"

"Mercy," he finished for her, and leaned down on the island, too.

"I know she's still asleep. I know that's what the doctor said. But I miss her, Peeta." She looked over her shoulder at the empty dining room table where Mercy's folded laundry sat in short stacks. From where she stood, Katniss could see their daughter's favorite pink tights, the red flannel that Peeta got her for the past fall, and about ten pairs of tiny underpants.

"I miss her, too," he said, placing flat palms on top of the steamy box. "I wish she was here, crawling all over this thing to get inside it."

Katniss laughed softly. "She's so fucking obsessed with cheese," she said, turning around to grab two plates out of the cupboard. "Got that from you, obviously."

"Oh, definitely," Peeta said, opening multiple cabinet doors before he found the one that held the cups. He pulled out two mugs – one that had some childlike artwork blazed onto it. Katniss took it gently from him and held it on display so he could see it.

"See what she made me for my birthday?" she asked, showcasing the mug that had some abstract paint on it and "I Luv U Mommy" in Mercy's left-handed scrawl.

"That's probably the cutest thing I've ever seen," Peeta said, taking it from her to look closer. "How did we get the smartest damn kid in the universe? I mean, I might have a bias, but I'm just saying. This is a scholar right here." They both chuckled, and Katniss took the mug back and filled it with Sprite, doing the same for Peeta's. "Wait, she gave that to you for your birthday?" he asked. "That was back in May. How come you didn't show me then?"

Katniss scoffed, leading the way to the living room. Peeta followed. "When would I have shown you, Peeta?" she asked. "Before or after Delly made out with you?"

Peeta jeered at her. "Not funny," he said.

"Not joking," she retorted, taking a huge bite of her pizza.

He tried to get past the awkwardness by changing the subject. "Remember when we used to eat entire pizzas?" he asked. "What was it, every Wednesday?"

"Thursday. Thirsty Thursday, everyone would go out and get drunk and we'd stay in and eat until we hated ourselves."

They both laughed. Katniss picked up the remote and turned _The Office_ back on. The episode from before was almost finished, and as the next one came on, neither of them spoke.

Mercy was heavy on Katniss's mind. She knew her baby was still asleep thanks to the medicine, but she still had the strong urge to be lying next to her. Not in the hospital bed, either; in her own bed upstairs that they'd always snuggle in on weekend mornings. Mercy would always tuck her body impossibly close to Katniss and wrap her little arms tight around her mother's waist like she never wanted to let her go.

Katniss wished that she could stay her baby forever.

But what she wished more was that she would get healthy. She had never felt a stronger fear than that of Mercy losing her life.

"Oh, it's this episode," Peeta said, jarring Katniss out of her thoughts. She had been trying to go back in time and figure out when the last time she'd gotten out her mother's old stethoscope and listened to Mercy's heart. She knew it wasn't really logical; she wasn't a licensed professional and couldn't tell a bad beat from a good one, but it always reassured her for some strange reason. Just to hear it beating strong in her ears, up close and personal. "Remember this one, K?"

She looked up at the screen and took another big bite of her pizza, then smiled at what she saw. It was the episode where Jim finally proposed to Pam.

"They are so cute," she said, pulling her knees up to her chest on the couch and resting her plate down on them. "I can't handle it. He just loves her so much, and you can tell she just doesn't even _know_ how much. Do you ever just look at his eyes when he looks at her? It really makes me wonder if there's chemistry between them as real people, or if they're just that good of actors. You know? Oh, wait, Peeta, look. It's happening. He did it." She smacked his arm and squealed a little. "So damn cute."

She looked over at Peeta and caught him already staring. "You done?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Shut up, I'm allowed to be like this over _some_ things."

"And people say you don't have feelings…" he said, a huge smile on his face.

"And by people you mean Delly?"

He rolled his eyes. "Well, my plan was way better."

"What?" she asked, her eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

"My plan to propose to you. Way better than Jim's," he said cockily.

She put her plate down on the coffee table and lowered her knees so she could totally face him. "Peeta Mellark, are you shitting me right now?"

His face flushed. "Never mind," he said.

"You can't take it back now, you already said it," she said, "Explain yourself, or I will beat you."

"As if you could," he said.

She pushed herself up onto her knees so she was taller than he was as he sat. "Tell me," she demanded. "You were going to propose to me?"

"I mean, yeah, Katniss," he said with a sigh, "we were together for a long time."

She relaxed down onto her heels, her pose much less intimidating. "Come on, just tell me."

He sighed, chewing the rest of the crust on his second slice. "Well, it wasn't going to be crazy. I knew you would've thought some big ordeal was stupid and then probably told me no," he paused to smile, probably recalling their lives back then. "I was going to have Prim go over to the townhouse unexpectedly and ask to make you over. We both knew you'd put up a huge fuss over it, but she was really gonna force you. And she was going to do your makeup and pick out a dress for you to wear, and somehow get you in the car. We didn't really have a backup plan if you decided to get stubborn. But she was going to take you to Buckingham fountain, you know the place where we-"

"I know, Peeta," she said warmly.

"Right, well…she was going to take you there and drop you off. We knew you'd be pissed and we laughed our _asses_ off playing out you screaming at her as she drove away. But it was going to be worth it. Because then I would walk up, you know, dressed dapper as usual…" Katniss made a judgmental sound in the back of her throat and raised her eyebrows towards the t-shirt he was wearing. "You know I clean up nice, shut up. Anyway, I was going to come and have a whole speech ready."

"You are good with words," she said.

"I know that," he said confidently, and she punched his thigh lightly. "And I was going to completely win you over. And get down on one knee, and ask you to marry me. And that was going to be that."

"Don't be so cocky," she joked, "it doesn't look good on you."

"I think it does," he said, smiling. "Although I really shouldn't take the credit. Prim came up with basically all of it."

Katniss stared down at her knees; her eyes grew hot like she was about to cry. She suddenly remembered her sister so vividly that she swore she could smell her – light lilac and vanilla. She could hardly stand to remember. "Oh," she said.

"Yeah."

"I miss her," she forced herself to say, even though her voice broke.

"Me, too," Peeta said, and put his hand on her leg and stroked her knee with his thumb.

They finished the rest of their pizza concentrating on the episode, and when it was over Katniss had forced the memory of Prim from her mind and was feeling insubstantially lighter because of it.

She kicked the empty pizza box off of the coffee table so she could rest her feet there. "Guess we finished it," she said, one hand over her belly. "Look, looks it did when Mercy was in here." She patted it for emphasis.

Peeta laughed and then patted her belly, too. "Cute," he said, "do you have any alcohol? I know it's not a great time. But I just…god, I just need one drink so I can relax a little bit. I'm not going to get drunk, I just want to-"

"You don't have to explain yourself, Peeta," she said, standing. "I have a little wine, but that's it. I'll go grab it." She poured him a glass and brought it back, and he sipped it gratefully.

"Are you going to have any?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I haven't had a drink in forever."

"Well, you've always been a lightweight, anyway. Maybe that's for the best."

"Be careful who you call a lightweight, lightweight," she said.

"Oh, what _ever_ ," he said, rolling his eyes. "Need I remind you? The night that you had about two drinks at Re-Bar and were drunk from 7pm all the way until the next morning?"

Peeta watched Katniss smacked her palm to her forehead. That night was still seared in his mind like a brand.

They had been 22. They weren't huge into the party scene, but they liked to get out every now and then, and Katniss was known in their friend group as the lightweight. Even Annie, who had much less muscle tone, could hold a drink better than she could.

In the club, Katniss could usually be counted on for a few dances, but then would spend her time lurking around the edges of the dance floor, nursing the ice drainage at the bottom of her glass. She was usually over it after a few hours, but not that night. For three straight hours she had her body glued to Peeta's, her hands everywhere, practically forcing herself on him in front of everyone.

He had been on sensory overload all night. He could hardly handle the way she was dancing; her back dramatically arched so her ass pressed against his groin. He had been hard the entire night to the point of extreme discomfort; all he wanted to do was get her home.

And eventually, he did. They went home to their townhouse without Finnick or Annie, the same brand of pizza on their dining room table. She had cranked up the stereo to the song with the loudest bass she could find and stripped off her shirt, leaving only her skintight black skirt and strapless bra on.

She bent at the waist and snapped up with a flip of her hair, then straddled Peeta's hips as he sat. He ran his hands up her back and under the band of her bra, and she had taken a piece of pizza from the box and ate it on his lap.

Not long after, they had fucked like animals. Peeta could hardly think about it now, otherwise he'd have to deal with a very awkward boner.

"Don't talk to me about that night…" Katniss groaned.

Peeta chuckled low in his throat. "Someone's gotta talk about it."

"No, no one does!" she said, her lips pulled up in a mischievous grin.

"Before then, who even knew you could dance like that?" he asked, his voice accidentally going high-pitched at the end.

"Yoga does things for your body, Peeta," she said, her voice low. "And I've been doing it for much longer now."

"Stop," he said, "stop."

She backed off, but stayed smug.

Less than an hour later, Katniss fell asleep on Peeta's shoulder. Her body was curled towards him; knees bent to nearly rest on his lap, one hand laid gently on his inner elbow, her cheek on his collarbone. She was so comfortable in such a precarious position that he hardly moved a muscle so not to wake her.

Her breath came in small puffs near his ear and her hair tickled the underside of his jaw. When they were together, she used to fall asleep on him all the time. It was never a burden; he actually grew to need it after a while.

She had been his security blanket. Moving to college was the ticket out of his toxic home and the ticket away from his abusive mother.

His mom hadn't started out bad. When he was really little, he could remember her being doting and loving, if not just a little removed. But by the time he started kindergarten, he picked up on the drinking.

The first smack came when he dumped all of the liquor down the sink after his sixth birthday party. She had been wasted during it, making a fool out of herself and embarrassing Peeta. By then, he had put two and two together that it was the bad drinks that made her act that way; made her not so much the mother he knew. So he did the only thing he could think of to make her better, he made the bad drinks disappear.

That night was very clear in his mind. She had looked like a monster, stomping out from the downstairs bathroom where he had done a bad job at covering up what he'd done by shoving the empty bottles haphazardly into the cabinet. She shook one of them in his face and he cowered in the corner of his bedroom, his body tucked into a ball with his knees by his chin.

The impact came from her open palm to the side of his head, which knocked the opposite side hard into the wall. He had cried out, which only made her hit him again.

His father had been dead for four years by that point, and she made sure his brothers never saw. From that point on, Peeta was her target. She was perfectly cheery to everyone else.

It ruined his self-esteem and his outlook on life. He couldn't remember a time that he'd been truly happy after that birthday, not until he met Katniss at Northwestern in the fall of their freshman year.

He hadn't told her about his childhood for a long time, not until they were officially seeing each other. There was no other way that he could explain the awful night terror he had the first night they slept in the same bed.

He discovered that after all those years of suffering, he had finally found the person who could comfort him.

When he woke up screaming that first night, she stayed. She didn't shy away; she pulled him closer and held him against her chest, stroking his hair and talking to him in low tones until his heart rate came back down. He grappled desperately for her and held on tight, his body trembling against hers, feeling more exposed than he ever had before. He was so afraid that she would leave and he would never see her again.

That didn't happen.

As their relationship progressed, he grew to depend on her being next to him at night. Just by knowing she was there, it would prevent the night terrors entirely. After they split, it was a whole new lifestyle he had to get used to. Delly just wasn't the same, though she tried.

Peeta knew the night terrors scared Delly, while Katniss had never batted an eye. She had fought enough of her own demons, what with her father dying when she was very young and having to help raise Prim and take on a big role with caring for her family.

After Prim died, he remembered Karen Everdeen moving into an assisted-living facility. The last he heard, she had an advanced case of Alzheimer's. He wondered now if she had passed, and felt his heart sink at the thought.

Prim had loved Peeta. She had only been eleven years old when he met her. She had her hair in two blonde braids that rested on her shoulders and he had never seen Katniss light up in the way she did when she saw her little sister. The Everdeens lived in Tinley Park, a suburb off of Chicago, and Prim had been out in the cul-de-sac playing doctor with her friends when Katniss and Peeta pulled up the driveway. She had run up to them, braids flying, and thrown her arms around Katniss's waist. Katniss had gotten down on her knees and held her little sister tight, burying her face in her neck.

Prim had been gentle and pure, looking up at Peeta bashfully when the reunion with her sister was over. When they were introduced, she had shaken his hand like a little lady.

As she grew, the two of them became more partners in crime than anything. They would team up and tease Katniss as she pretended to be annoyed and cook dinners together when Katniss acted stubborn over burning everything. She used to visit their townhouse all the time.

Katniss sighed and he wound one of his arms around her. He couldn't help thinking that Primrose would've made a wonderful aunt.

When she died, it changed who Katniss was. She retreated into her own head and wouldn't come out, not even for Peeta. He didn't know how to relate to her because he realized that the worst thing that could've ever happened to her, had. And there was no way he could fix it.

She stopped talking. He came to the conclusion that she didn't want him around anymore, and she didn't fight to keep him.

Only a few months after Prim's death did he get an unexpected call from Katniss during which she told him she was pregnant, and their lives were forever changed all over again.

Katniss woke up about an hour later, when the clock read just past midnight. She stirred against Peeta and then blinked her eyes open, rubbing them with her fists, looking just like Mercy.

"Hey," Peeta said gently, using a finger to move her hair away from her eyes.

She inhaled deeply, and his heart could hardly stand it. He didn't realize how much he'd missed seeing her like this; soft, warm and unaware.

"Hey," she said, her voice still thick with sleep. She laid her head back down on his shoulder and held his bicep with both of her arms, hugging it close. He turned his head and pressed his lips to the top of her hair, rubbing her bony back just slightly. "How long did I sleep for?" she asked.

"An hour or two," he said, tracing the bumps of her spine with his thumb.

"Oh, that long," she said, then sighed. "I want to be with her, Peeta."

"Then let's go," he said.

They drove separately, got back to the hospital and everything was silent. Without words exchanged, Katniss set her duffel bag down by the window and then kicked off her tennis shoes. She padded to Mercy's bed in her socks, leaned over their daughter who was still very asleep, and kissed her face. She crawled in bed with Mercy, pulled her little body close, and shut her eyes. Peeta knew how much more at ease Katniss felt being back with Mercy because he felt the same. He sat in the most comfortable chair in the corner, reclined, and fell asleep alongside his family.


	4. Four

Katniss felt Mercy stirring the next morning and her eyes snapped open. Mercy yawned and stretched her arms above her head, curling closer to her mother.

"You're up, baby girl," Katniss said, kissing her hairline.

"Hi, mommy," Mercy said, her voice raspy and soft. Katniss glanced over her daughter's head and saw Peeta in the reclining chair, still passed out. She let him sleep.

"You were asleep for such a long time," Katniss said, pressing her forehead against Mercy's as they spoke. It was such a relief to see those pretty blue eyes wide open. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too, mommy," Mercy said, smiling. "I never wanna sleep again."

"Deal," Katniss said with a chuckle. "Hey, what's the beat?"

"109 and feelin' fine," Mercy whispered, smiling hard.

"Strong and steady?" Katniss asked for the first time in a while.

"Steady and strong," Mercy parroted, and threw one arm around Katniss's waist to bury her face in her mother's chest. Katniss petted the back of her hair and breathed in how she smelled, never wanting to leave her side again.

"I love you, my girl," Katniss said.

"I love you best, mama."

With Mercy's head resting on her chest, Katniss couldn't help remembering the days when she nursed her. They had such an inseparable bond and the time that they spent together, just sitting in silence, unable to be any closer, was so special. Katniss used to sing _Your Song_ by Elton John to Mercy as she nursed, and would still sing it for her every once in a while when she put her to bed.

 _I hope you don't mind; I hope you don't mind that I put down in words…how wonderful life is now that you're in the world._

She hummed the tune now and felt Mercy's fingers lazily play with her hair; something she'd been doing since she was a baby on Katniss's hip. Her hand would instinctively go to the back of her mother's head to pet her hair without really even knowing what she was doing.

When Peeta woke up, they were still lying in the same position. Katniss watched him awaken slowly, taking in a deep breath and stretching his legs outward. The first thing he did was meet her eyes and then glance at Mercy, raising his eyebrows. "She up?" he asked.

Katniss nodded. "Just cuddling," she said. "Singing a little bit."

"Sad I missed it," Peeta said with a smile. He got up and walked to the bed, and Mercy rolled over onto her back. "There's my girl that I love," he said, practically beaming.

"Daddy," Mercy said, grinning. She stretched her arms up and Peeta gave her a big hug, kissing her cheeks over and over again. "I love you best."

A week later, Mercy was stronger than ever. It still hadn't snowed and it was December 19th; the weather was actually getting increasingly warmer. That day it was almost 60 degrees; the sun was shining, birds were chirping, and Mercy was standing up by the window tethered to her oxygen tank, dying to be outside.

She hadn't breathed the air out of the hospital for over a week. Katniss felt horrible for cooping her up.

Dr. Calloway came in for a midday checkup, and saw Mercy standing with her palms to the windows, gazing out longingly. "Hey, little lady," she called, and Mercy scampered over to her favorite doctor and gave her a big hug. "Let's check up on that heart."

"Do you have to take blood from me?" Mercy asked, curling her elbows in close to her body.

"Nope, no blood today. You have a few days to dodge us until we steal some more from you," the doctor said, and pressed a stethoscope to Mercy's chest. "Wow, that's the strongest heart I've ever heard!" she said, her brown eyes sparkling.

"Can I go home yet, Lizzie?" Mercy asked, deflating against her pillow. Katniss watched the doctor for her answer, though she already knew what it was. Mercy's antibiotic treatment wasn't over for two-and-a-half more weeks.

"No, not yet, I'm sorry to say," Dr. Calloway said, pulling the blood pressure sleeve away from Mercy's skinny arm. "But you know what? I might be able to compromise with you a little bit." She looked affirmatively at Katniss and Peeta and continued. "It's such a nice day outside, what if you, Mommy and Daddy took a little day trip? Wherever you want to go. As long as you stay in your chair and take your breather and come back before dinner, you can take a field trip today."

Katniss's heart leapt. "Really?" she asked, even before Mercy could react.

"Really," Dr. Calloway said, and Katniss felt a rush of appreciation for her. She must've been able to see how much the hospital had started to oppress Mercy, too. "She's been doing so well. All of her vitals have stayed strong, and the vegetations have started clearing off her heart, judging by the scan on Thursday." It had been a relief for everyone to see a cleaner scan. "There's no reason why she can't. I'll sign a release form, and we'll just need her back in time for evening rounds. Can you do that?"

Peeta nodded this time, looking at the doctor like she was a saint. And in that moment, she was. "Thank you," he said.

"You're welcome," she replied, hearing the gravity of his words.

"Can I wear my real clothes?" Mercy asked hopefully. She had grown so tired of the papery hospital gowns.

"While you're outside, of course you can," Dr. Calloway said. "Now, get outta here. I don't want to see you until dinner! Go have fun, okay? I'll page a nurse in here to get you all prepped."

Once she left, the three of them embraced. Katniss was so happy she could cry. "Where do you want to go?" she asked her daughter, looking to Peeta for suggestions too.

"The special fountain," Mercy said, without even pausing to think.

They didn't need to ask for clarification. They had been taking her to Buckingham fountain ever since she was a toddler, getting splashed by the spray when it was hot and sitting on the benches surrounding it when it was cold. It had been a landmark in their lives long before she was born, and they wanted to share it with her, albeit separately, once she came into the world.

They had never gone there together all three of them as a family.

"Anything you want," Peeta said, and then looked to Katniss. "You wanna get her clothes?"

Katniss nodded and dug through the duffel bag she had packed while a nurse hooked Mercy up to a portable oxygen tank and had Peeta sign the release forms under Dr. Calloway's name. Katniss picked out a stretchy pair of jeans, short tan Ugg boots and her favorite blue sweater of Mercy's, and then helped her into it all. Mercy had lost a lot of her strength from being in the hospital for an extended period of time, so even little tasks like getting herself dressed had become strenuous. Katniss didn't mind, though. It reminded her of when Mercy was smaller and depended on her for much more.

She brushed out her daughter's hair and then wove it into a loose braid down her back, a hairstyle that Mercy was always partial to after seeing it on Katniss for so many years. She slipped a North Face jacket on over the blue sweater and then looked to Peeta, who was already dressed in his own fleece, ready to go.

He took Katniss's place behind the wheelchair, and it felt like they were walking out of the hospital with Mercy for the very first time all over again.

As they walked, Katniss kept a steadying hand on the small of Peeta's back, both for his comfort and her own. He had been going to work during the days for the past week, but she had taken a leave and stayed with Mercy. It surprised her how much she missed him while he was gone. She hadn't actively missed him in years, but the feeling was not entirely unwelcome. Mostly because of the elation she felt when he appeared back in the doorway, dressed in his business casual attire, usually bearing some sort of surprise for the two of them.

That's what it would've been like had they raised her together, like a normal family. That intrusive thought kept making its way into Katniss's head every time it got the chance.

She didn't know what to make of it. She felt herself falling into the role of not only the mother, but the wife. And Peeta fit perfectly in the mold of the husband.

Neither of them were fighting it, and Mercy was thriving because of it.

Even so, they didn't speak about it. Katniss was too scared, and she assumed that Peeta was, too. Plus, they had bigger things to worry about.

Peeta painstakingly pushed Mercy out to his car in the wheelchair, minding every little bump or gap in the pavement, and then tried to pick her up to put her in her booster seat.

"Daddy, I can do it by myself," she insisted, then stood up on her own and climbed into the seat, buckling herself.

"Well, look at you," Katniss said, planting her hands on her hips. "Miss independent."

Mercy beamed as Peeta buckled her oxygen tank next to her in the middle seat.

They drove to the fountain with the windows cracked, enjoying the feeling of fall weather even as winter descended down upon them. Katniss rested her arm on the console for the ride down Lakeshore Drive and Peeta did too, clasping her hand when they were about halfway there.

He convinced himself that he did it to support her. To tell her without words that they were in this together; he wouldn't admit to himself that there was more to the small action.

It was hard not to let the flood of memories take over his brain. They were headed to Buckingham fountain, the place where they had met nine years ago and the place where he had almost proposed to her. The day was unseasonably beautiful, they were together and their daughter was in the back seat. He couldn't think of a way that the day could be more perfect.

They parked and Peeta got the wheelchair out of the trunk, coming around with it for Mercy. He took off his fleece because the temperature had started to climb, and even the light wind coming from the lake wasn't enough to keep him cool.

"Mommy, can I take mine off, too?" Mercy asked as she sat down in the wheelchair. Peeta hooked up her oxygen tank to the side of it as Katniss gave in to her request and draped her tiny fleece over the back of the chair. It really was too warm to wear; it was hard to believe.

There was about a two-block walk from where they parked to where they wanted to be, but once they got there the sound of the water was deafening.

"I don't remember it being this big," Katniss said, craning her neck to look up at the different tiers of the fountain.

Peeta stifled a laugh and got a smack on the arm because of it.

"Why's Daddy laughing?" Mercy asked.

"Because Daddy's gross," Katniss answered, smacking him again for good measure.

"I know," Mercy said, still facing forward and marveling at the water as they got closer and closer. "He burps and even farts, mommy."

"Maybe we should take him to the pound," Katniss said. "Or should we keep him?"

Mercy laughed; a high, musical chime that fit right under the roar of the water. "We can keep him."

When they got to the fountain, right up next to the gate, the water spritzed their faces. Mercy braced her hands on the armrests of her wheelchair and Peeta knelt down next to it, Katniss following suit soon after.

"The big one!" Mercy said excitedly, pointing up to the sky where a huge surge of water jetted out. "It's touching the sky!" She looked between her parents with a look of pure joy on her face, her chest heaving as she breathed. Her voice was thin with the work it took to speak.

Katniss sat down and crossed her legs as she held one of Mercy's hands, so Peeta did the same. "I haven't seen the jets go off in years," Katniss said. "How about you, Peeta?"

"No, I can't remember the last time I did," he said.

"I remember," Mercy said smartly. "It was summertime and I had my cherry dress on and me and Daddy gotted Dunkin Donuts and came here. They were melted all over our hands and we got all sticky, but we just wiped it on our clothes, and we got here and watched the big water go."

Katniss looked to Peeta for assurance, and he nodded. The memory came back to him as soon as his daughter said it. The summer day had been hot and humid; the icing on their doughnuts hadn't stood a chance. Mercy was almost four, and he had carried her for most of the day, but let her down when they came to the fountain. There was so much space to run around that she could go wild with uninhibited energy.

"I do remember now that you say it, Cici," he said. "You have such a good memory."

"Mama says like an elephant; I never forget anything. I even remember back when I was one years old. I remember when I was a baby."

"Oh, really?" Peeta asked, raising his eyebrows.

Mercy stuck out her chin proudly. "Uh-huh."

"What do you remember?" he asked, standing up with Katniss to push the wheelchair around to take in the circumference of the fountain. "Tell me a story."

"I remember that you and Mommy meeted here for the very first time ever," she said, letting out a big sigh after the last word.

"Remember to breathe," Katniss reminded her.

Mercy went on with her story. "You and Mommy meeted here and that's why it's the special fountain," she said. "I remember the story because Mommy told me it lots of times."

Peeta looked at Katniss with a sly smirk on his face. She avoided his gaze.

"Why don't you tell it to us now?" Peeta asked.

"I want you to tell it," Mercy insisted, and Peeta, of course, obliged.

They sat down on a bench and he could tell that Katniss badly wanted to pull Mercy onto her lap, but knew that she shouldn't to keep the oxygen tank in place. Instead, she ran her fingers up and down Mercy's arms over her sweater, and kissed her forehead.

"Well, it was just around fall time," Peeta began, and Katniss leaned back and got comfortable to listen to him.

It had been early fall. September to be specific. Katniss was sitting on a bench near the fountain by herself, not doing much but reading. She had wanted to get away from campus and her roommate, Glimmer, who was already too much for her to handle.

So she came to the one place she knew she could find solace. Though it was far away, she thought it would be worth it.

Not even thirty minutes after she showed up, a tall, loud-speaking man came up and sat beside her, breaching her personal space. She looked up from her book and smiled curtly at him, which only encouraged his actions further.

"What are you reading?" he had asked. She held up the cover of her book; _Best American Short Stories_. "I prefer novels," he said. "I could give you this list of recommendations I have. I've been making it up for a while."

"No, thanks," Katniss said, trying to keep her eyes down on the pages, "I have plenty to read for school."

"Oh, school? Where do you go?"

"Northwestern," she said.

"Damn, you must be smart then," he said, "With looks like yours, I pegged you for more of a DePaul girl."

She had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Her best friend, Madge, went to DePaul. She didn't care enough to ask him to clarify.

"Or maybe a Columbia girl, I don't know. Those girls are usually freaks, though, and I mean that in the best way." He laughed lasciviously at his own joke. She didn't crack a smile or even attempt eye contact in efforts that he'd get the message to back off and leave.

"I've never met a Northwestern girl, not formally, at least," he said, leaning closer, "you should show me what they're like. Show me around campus, you know, I'd like to see it." He laughed. "I know I'm being forward. But I find, with girls like you, it tends to reel you right in. How am I doing?"

She looked up desperately. The expanse around the fountain was wide and full of people but without many distractions. She didn't know how she'd make an excuse to leave or to get him to go away.

"Oh, come on, don't get scared off," he said condescendingly, "I'm just trying to make friends with you. You look new here, don't be so ungrateful."

Katniss shut her book, about ready to get up and sprint, but she never got to that point.

She felt an arm wind around her shoulders and a warm body appear beside her. She tried to pull away until she saw the look on the first guy's face.

"Hey babe," the unknown stranger said, and then looked to the unwelcome man. "Sorry, give me a second. Did you remember to lock the door this morning? Because I totally can't remember if I did or not. Here's the tea you asked for, by the way." He handed her a cup that was completely full of pink, tropical-looking liquid. "Who's this? Is he bothering you?"

"He's, ah…" Katniss stammered.

"Whatever," the guy muttered, and stalked away before any more words could be exchanged between them.

Instantly, the stranger took his arm away from her and gave her back her space. "God, I'm sorry about that. He just looked like he was bothering you, and I usually find that with my girl friends, they need some way out of it. I've gotten pretty good at being the out."

"Your girlfriends? As in plural?" Katniss asked, raising her eyebrows. She handed him back the pink tea and he took a long sip.

He laughed. "No, my friends that are girls." He laughed again, this time a little softer. "I'm Peeta."

"Katniss," she said, and felt her cheeks warm. She shook his hand.

"It's nice to formally meet you. If you ever need a fake boyfriend again, you can hire me for 10 dollars an hour."

Then it was her turn to laugh. "What does your real girlfriend think about your façade?" she asked.

He scoffed. "Real girlfriend, wow. You already think so highly of me." He shook his head. "Peeta Mellark, perpetually single."

"Katniss Everdeen, in the same boat," she said, and then stared down at her sandals.

"Hey, why don't I take you out to lunch? To sort of apologize for the overall shittiness of the male gender. It's the least I can do."

She took him up on it. They had started dating two weeks later, and went strong for almost five years after.

By the end of the story, Mercy had fallen asleep in her wheelchair. Peeta looked at Katniss after he finished speaking and locked eyes with her, spiraling deep into the gray pools that he had once fallen in love with.

He couldn't stop himself before it happened. He leaned forward and kissed her.

He expected her to return it with fervor, to grip his arms and give herself to him, but she did the opposite. She pulled away, a surprised look on her face, and shook her head just slightly.

"Peeta, you're already taken," she said quickly, but her hip stayed rested against his.

He pressed his lips together. She was right. He wondered how smart it was to continue the relationship with Delly when so much was going on in his emotional life that she was so unaware of. It wasn't fair to her. But right now, it would be adding too much stress to his life to end it.

He knew he had to, though, for her sake.

"I know," he sighed. "I know. Jesus, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Katniss said, and took his wrist. "Because I…" she didn't finish her sentence.

"You what?" he asked.

She sighed and shook her head.

"You what?" he pushed again.

"I feel it," she finally admitted, turning her head to look deep into his eyes. "I can, too. I know what you… but we just can't. Not right now. Not when she…" she gestured towards Mercy with her head lolled to one side and her perfect pink lips slackened with sleep.

"I know," Peeta said. "It's getting chillier now. We should get back to the hospital."

They stood up and wheeled Mercy back to the car, then lifted her into the backseat as she stayed asleep.

Peeta wasn't sure when the next time was that she'd be able to be outside again, and he wished she was awake to say a formal goodbye to the fountain, at least for a while. But he wasn't cruel enough to wake her because she got exhausted so easily.

"It was a good day," Katniss said, after Peeta was inside the car. She gripped his hand that had come to rest on the gear shift and squeezed his knuckles.

He leaned over and pressed his lips to her temple, and she leaned into the kiss.

"It was a great day," he agreed.

Then they pulled away and headed back towards the hospital, watching life as they used to know it rush past the car windows on Lakeshore Drive.

That night after evening rounds, Mercy fell asleep halfway through her hospital dinner. Katniss and Peeta smiled at each other and cleared away her food, quiet enough so not to wake her.

Katniss pulled the tray back around the bed and then tucked Mercy under her covers, carefully situating her so she wasn't on top of any wires, and then put her orange stuffed cat in her arms.

"Little baby is so tired from all the activity today," Peeta said, stroking his daughter's smooth forehead. "Do you think she had fun?"

Katniss nodded, sitting on the opposite side of the bed. "I know she did," she said. "She loves hearing that story of how we met." She chuckled softly. "She's such a sappy little romantic."

"Takes after someone," Peeta said, then walked his fingers up Katniss's thin arm.

"Yeah, you," she said, pointing a finger back at him. "Mr. Elaborate Proposal Plan."

"So many girls would kill for that, Katniss," he said, "I'm a hot commodity."

"And yet you chose me," she said.

A heavy silence followed. To break it, Katniss got up from Mercy's bed and changed into her pajamas, facing the curtained window. Peeta watched her; the lithe muscles of her back rippling as she pulled her day shirt off over her head, her shoulder blades jutting out as she slipped her nightshirt on. He knew he should've averted his eyes when she dropped her jeans and was left in her underwear, but he couldn't force himself to. Her ass was something he never used to be able to take his eyes off of, and that moment proved that nothing had changed in that respect. He couldn't help it; it looked perfect in her polka-dotted underwear, with just a little bit peeking out on the sides. She pulled on loose-fitting drawstring pajama pants, and then turned back around as she put her hair up in a bun.

"You look comfy," he said, and stretched out on the couch that was in the new room that Mercy had been issued just earlier that night. Since she had stayed for longer than a week, they got a more comfortable space.

"Are you going to get changed, too?" she asked him, stretching her arms above her head, which made a tiny sliver of her belly peek out from under her shirt.

"Yeah, I am. I-" His phone rang, cutting off his sentence. He looked down at the screen and saw that it was Delly, and knew he needed to pick up. "Hold on," he said.

When he got up and left the room, Katniss sat at the foot of Mercy's bed and wondered where she would sleep for the night. With Mercy was out of the question – that was too risky. Peeta had seemed to claim the couch, and the only thing left was a rocking chair with wooden arms in the corner, which would be highly uncomfortable.

She sighed and tried not to listen in on Peeta's conversation, though it was hard in the first place because of the hushed tones he was speaking in. She clenched her teeth and ground them together as she thought of Delly at their house, sitting by the fireplace with a cup of tea, not a worry in the world. Katniss practically had resentment seeping from her pores.

When Peeta came back in the room, he seemed more withered than before and something sick within Katniss was glad for it.

"Everything okay?" she asked, and he went over to his backpack and dug out a pair of blue flannel pajama pants and the Chicago Bears t-shirt. She rolled her eyes at his choice, and he smiled at her reaction. He had worn it every night so far that week just to provoke a reaction out of her, and she, of course, always delivered.

"Yeah, it's fine," he said with a sigh. "She's just…" he shook his head. "I don't know. It's hard for her to understand."

"What's hard to understand?" Katniss asked, a defensive clip in her voice. Peeta met her eyes as he changed shirts and she willed her gaze not to flit to his abdomen. Or to the bulge between his legs when he changed his pants right in front of her. "Jesus, Peeta," she said.

"What? You did it," he said, facing his palms up towards her submissively. "How come I get in trouble for it?"

"You're…." she stammered for a words. "You're different. Anyway, what could possibly be hard for Delly to understand?" She remembered that Mercy was asleep just inches away, so she lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. "That our daughter has heart problems and gets sick? That you are her father and want to stay with her because you love her?"

"I don't think that's it," he said, plopping down on the couch again, on the far side so his left elbow could rest on the arm.

"What is it then?" Katniss asked, widening her eyes for effect.

"Me coming here after work every day. Spending every night here. She's not bothered that I'm with Mercy, she's bothered that I'm with you," he said, emphasizing the last part.

It wasn't that Katniss didn't already know. But hearing it out loud made it all the more real. "Oh," she said, letting his words sink in. "Well…she still has no right to burden you with her own insecurities. I'm Mercy's mother-"

"Katniss," he said softly, "you don't need to defend yourself to me. Or defend _me_ to me. I already explained it all to her, and she's doing her best to understand."

"Doesn't sound like her best is good enough."

"But is _anyone's_ best good enough for you?" he asked, only half joking.

Katniss looked at him hard for a few moments, trying to decipher the meaning of his words. She wondered how far back in time they reached. "Of course it is," she said with a jerk of her head.

He sighed. "I'm exhausted. I'm ready to hit the hay." He laid down on his side on the soft couch, his back against the cushions. Katniss stood up from Mercy's bed and walked over to the rocking chair, where she was about to retire to for the night. "K, what the hell are you doing?" he called from the other side of the room.

"Going to bed," she said, "I don't want to lay with Mercy, I wouldn't sleep a wink. I'd worry all night whether-"

"You can't sleep on the damn rocking chair," he said with a scoff. "Come over here and lay next to me. I won't try anything."

"Yeah," she said with an eye-roll, "I remember you saying that when we slept on the futon that time we stayed with my mom, and look how true it was back then."

He laughed, but tried to stifle it with his hand. "This is different. Come on, there's plenty of room."

It didn't take much for her to give in. She flicked the light off and walked to the couch, sitting down first and then melding herself against Peeta's body. Though the couch was big, but not many couches were wide enough to lay side-by-side and not be touching. He had one arm outstretched that she used as a pillow, and instead of facing him, she chose to face out towards Mercy instead. Without a place for his other arm to go, the only choice he had was to drape it over her hips, and that was what he did. With a very subtle shift, he situated her closer to him, possibly for the comfort of his arm and possibly for other reasons, but she let it happen either way.

"This doesn't make things any less confusing," Katniss whispered.

She felt him take a deep inhalation and his hand flattened over her hipbone. She wanted so badly for his hand to move upward and hold her even tighter, for him to cup her breast and tuck his face into her neck, but she knew that would never happen.

"It's not confusing," he insisted, his voice close to her ear. It gave her chills. "We're with Mercy. You're her mother. I'm her father. There's only one place to sleep, and I'm keeping you from falling off."

She sighed, defeated that he could look at things so simply from the surface even though they both knew that it was much more complicated than that.


	5. Five

It was December 22nd and it still hadn't snowed. Mercy wasn't happy about that or the fact that she wouldn't get to go outside again for a while.

"I want to go out and play, mommy," she said, her orange stuffed cat tucked under her arm as she swung her legs over the side of her bed. "I'm tired of being in here. I want to see my friends. I want to go to the playground. Santa isn't going to know where we are!" she insisted, pounding a small fist down onto the mattress.

Katniss felt Mercy's pain. She had the same cooped-up feeling, but also the heavy weight of guilt because she had no power to fix her daughter's situation.

"Only a little bit until you're all done with your medicine, baby," Katniss said, putting her book down. It was the newest edition of _Best American Short Stories_ – Peeta had picked it up for her on his way back from work the day before. "Then we can go home and hopefully never have to come back here again." She uncrossed her legs. "Hey, what do you say about a field trip around the hospital? We can check out the vending machines again."

"We already saw all them," Mercy said, and Katniss heard the imminent tears in her voice. "I'm _bored_ , mommy, I want to go home now. I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to be sick anymore. Mommy, why can't the doctors fix me right now?"

Katniss sighed and felt her own throat clog as Mercy started to sob. She got up from her chair and hurried over to her daughter, whom she took in her arms and rocked back and forth while holding her small body to her own. "Shh, shh," she soothed, petting Mercy's hair. "I know it's hard. I know, Cici. I wish I could make it better, but we just have to be patient until the doctors make your heart all better."

"I don't want to wait anymore," Mercy sobbed, clutching tight fistfuls of Katniss's heather gray shirt. "I want to go home to my bed and my couch and my TV and my school and not be sick anymore."

A couple tears dripped from Katniss's eyes down onto the top of Mercy's head. "I know, baby girl," she said, her voice choked. "I know. I wish that, too. And it'll come sooner than you know it, I promise."

Mercy didn't say anything more. She just cried into Katniss's chest until she was too exhausted to continue, and then fell asleep in her mother's arms. Katniss situated them both so they were lying on the bed instead of sitting halfway off of it and then pulled Mercy close again, pressing her nose against the crown of her head. "I'm so sorry, Mercy, I love you," she whispered, her words tumbling out against her daughter's hair. "I hope you know how much."

More tears leaked out of her eyes, but she didn't bother to wipe them away. She wanted to say more to her daughter, but she couldn't put the right words together that fully put across how she felt. Mercy was a part of Katniss's heart made human. She was the best thing she would ever create, and the best legacy to leave behind.

She was a perfectly personified example of how much she and Peeta had been in love.

Katniss rocked her daughter side to side and sang _Your Song_ , quiet enough so Mercy wouldn't wake up. With her daughter's little body attached to her side, Katniss was reminded of when Mercy was a healthy, chunky baby. When she'd drop her off at Peeta's, he used to joke that it was a wonder that Mercy ever learned to walk because Katniss never set her down. They had such a strong bond; she was happiest when Mercy was in her arms. Though the little girl had grown since then, that feeling hadn't gone away.

She laid down fully, carefully adjusting Mercy with her so her daughter's head was on her chest with an arm wrapped around her. Katniss kissed her forehead and Mercy sighed; her sweet, childlike breath puffing onto Katniss's neck.

"You are the best thing that ever happened to me," she whispered, using the arm that wasn't around Mercy's shoulders to brush her daughter's hair out her eyes. "Sweet dreams, Cici."

When Katniss woke up, it was around 3pm and Mercy was stirring, too. Katniss sat up and Mercy adjusted with her, blinking her eyes hard.

"Mommy?" Mercy said, her voice on edge.

"What, baby?"

She heard the heart monitor start to speed up. "I can't see you, mommy."

"What?" Katniss shot up from the bed, standing in front of her daughter as Mercy rubbed her eyes furiously. "You can't see me? What do you mean you can't see me?"

"My eye can't see!" Mercy shrieked.

Katniss started to panic. She pounded the call button next to Mercy's bed over and over again as her daughter screamed, but no one came running. When Mercy's screams stopped and she lay flat on the bed seizing so hard that it made the wheels clack against the floor, Katniss ran into the hallway and screamed for someone, anyone, to come.

A horde of doctors rushed in. Katniss was pushed to the back of the crowd where she couldn't see what was going on. Tears were pouring down her face. "Mercy!" she called, trying to push her way through.

"Get her out, get her out," one of the head doctors ordered, and a nurse found Katniss and began to lead her out of the room by her arm.

Katniss pushed her away as hard as she could, and the nurse flew back to hit the wall.

"What is happening to my daughter?" she screamed, elbowing her way inside as best she could, but she couldn't get as close as the first tier of doctors. All she saw was Mercy in the middle of a seizure, foam spewing from her mouth and running down her chin to pool in her neck; her body racking so hard that her back lifted from the mattress. "My baby," Katniss cried, "that's my baby. Someone save her."

Peeta was in the car when he got the call. He saw Katniss's number and picked up with a smile, but couldn't get through his hello before he heard her bloodcurdling scream rip through the speakers. Her words were all he needed to floor the gas pedal and race to the hospital.

 _She needs you come now she's dying and I don't know what to do._

He didn't remember parking the car or if he even did at all. He ran in his business loafers through the hospital until he found Mercy's room, expecting a huge ruckus when he got there, but he instead came upon complete silence.

He was afraid to go in at first, but his hesitation didn't last for longer than a millisecond. He stepped through the door – the door they'd been going in and out of for days – and felt vomit rise up in his throat.

"No." He hadn't told his mouth to form the word, it just tumbled out. "No," he said again. "No, no, no, no. _No_."

They were lying there together on the hospital bed. Katniss was on her stomach, her face buried in Mercy's neck, not visible. She was covering their daughter's chest with her body, her arms strewn around her, her pose reminiscent of a human shield attempting to protect Mercy from something she could have never stopped.

"Katniss…" he breathed, hardly daring to take one step closer. He didn't want to believe it. Her machines were turned off.

There was spitty substance surrounding Mercy's mouth and what he could see of her neck. Her hair was fanned out around her head like a halo; her eyes were shut and her perfect pink lips were bowed just slightly. She was completely unmoving. He stared at her chest, willing it to rise with a breath, but it did not.

Otherwise, she looked like she could've been sleeping.

Katniss's thumb was stroking what part of Mercy's body she could reach; her inner elbow. That tiny inner elbow that had been poked with countless needles for the past two weeks. The inner elbow whose veins had grown too thin to take blood from anymore.

The little girl they had fought so hard for was gone.

"Peeta, I am so sorry." Dr. Calloway's voice made him jump. He didn't turn around to face her. "She had a massive stroke. We did everything we could. I can explain it to you if you would like-"

"No," he said firmly. Too loudly.

"Okay, take as long as-"

"Please, leave us alone," he said, his voice clogged with tears. "Leave. We need to..." he couldn't finish his sentence.

The doctor left without another word. Peeta kicked off his shoes and crawled onto the hospital bed, the side that Katniss wasn't on, and wrapped his arm around their daughter. Her body was still warm, but she wasn't there.

In the silent room, Peeta heard something familiar. Katniss was singing. Singing _Your Song_ , her voice buried in Mercy's hair, but still discernible.

 _I hope you don't mind; I hope you don't mind that I put down in words…how wonderful life is now that you're in the world…_

Then she said, "She won't wake up." Katniss pulled her face away from Mercy and turned to look at him. "She won't wake up, Peeta," she croaked.

"I know," was all he could think of to say. "I know."

"Peeta," Katniss breathed, reaching across and pulling Mercy's body closer, resting her head on their little girl's small chest. "I don't hear it."

Peeta laid his head down next to Mercy's and when he blinked, tears rolled off of his face and landed with small taps down onto the mattress. "She's gone, Katniss," he whispered, and then broke down into a mess of sobs into his daughter's raven hair. "She's gone."

They could've laid there for years or for hours, Peeta couldn't be sure. But it was long enough that he jumped when he heard Dr. Calloway's voice at the door.

"I'm so sorry, Peeta, Katniss," she said, her voice heavy with grief. He sat up to look at her and saw that her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. "We have to take her body. She…it can't stay."

Peeta took in a shaky breath and put his hand on Katniss's back. Mercy had grown cold, but she was not yet stiff. He didn't want to wait until she was.

"Katniss," he said softly, and averted his eyes from Mercy's face.

That was no longer his daughter.

Katniss sat up but pulled Mercy with her onto her lap, and their daughter's body cooperated like she was heavily asleep. She was limp against Katniss's chest, and Katniss's grip around her back was as tight as a vice. She had her face buried in Mercy's hair, tears running down her cheeks, still singing.

 _Excuse me forgetting, but these things I do; see I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue. Anyway, the thing is…what I really mean, yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen…and you can tell everybody this is your song…it may be quite simple but now that it's done…_

"Katniss," he said again. He was hardly able to look at her. To look at them. "You have to let her go."

She met his eyes for the first time and he had never seen pain so raw. Her body was shaking, gripping her daughter's lifeless form with everything she had left to give.

"I can't," she said.

Tears flowed freely down his face and he bent in half to press his forehead against Mercy's back, crying onto the hospital gown she had hated. He felt Katniss's hands reach around and grip him tight, holding him together.

They spent a moment the two of them, weeping silently and holding Mercy between their bodies. Her smell was gone. Suddenly, he struggled to place exactly what it had been. He came to realize that he would never hear his daughter's voice, marvel at her smile, or see her ocean eyes again.

"I'm sorry, but you're going to have to let us take her," Dr. Calloway said, now with a small group of people who held a piece of paper that no parent should ever have to see. They had Mercy's death certificate.

Katniss lifted her head to look at the doctor. "Have you been…crying?" she asked, her tone unreadable.

Dr. Calloway wiped beneath her eyes with her thumbs, attempting an answer as Katniss stood. She set Mercy's body down gently, then leaned over her and kissed her porcelain cheek. Peeta watched her body language change, and rushed up from the bed just in time to hold her swinging arm back as she raised it to try and slap the doctor across the face.

"Katniss, no," he said weakly, and her arm shook as he fought to lower it. It eventually went back to her side, and she went totally weak in his grip.

"If you want to say your last goodbyes…" Dr. Calloway said, visibly shaken from the encounter she almost had with Katniss.

"We said them," Katniss spat, her cheek resting on Peeta's strong chest as he held her up. "Take her. Just take her."

Peeta gave a curt nod, and then a sheet was pulled over Mercy and her cold body was wheeled away, down the hall to a place where they could not follow.

They went home separately after her body was taken away, only exchanging the words that were necessary. There was nothing much left to say.

Katniss drove home in a fog after declining Peeta's offer to take her there. She needed to be alone, and she couldn't bear to look at his face. His blue eyes were Mercy's.

She unlocked the front gate, walked up the stairs and then went slowly through the front door, toting the duffel bag with her that she had brought to the hospital what felt like a lifetime ago. The smell of home hit her like a ton of bricks; she was only able to smell it after she had been gone for a while. It smelled like everything she had left behind and it reminded her of Mercy.

There wasn't much that didn't remind her of Mercy.

She threw the bag onto the floor and unzipped it for one item only. When she found Mercy's pretty blue sweater, she kicked the bag as hard as she could with a forced-sounding grunt. It hit the underside of the kitchen cupboards with a light thud.

With the sweater cradled in her arms like the child that had worn it, she went through the house and turned down every frame that held Mercy's face. She started with her nursery school photo, her preschool one, and the kindergarten one that was only three months old.

She took the ones down that were hanging in the hallway; a series of autumn shots taken two years before in Museum Campus. The biggest one was the hardest to remove; a wide shot of she and Mercy under a bridge with their backs to the camera, hand-in-hand, walking away, their faces tilted towards each other.

She had been going on and on about some TV show that day, but Katniss couldn't remember specifics. What other memories had she already lost?

She took down the finger painting from the fridge and without anywhere else to put it, stuck it inside the door. She hid the oven-blazed mug that Mercy made her for birthday. She scoured the downstairs part of the house until all proof of Mercy was gone.

Then she went upstairs and paused at her daughter's room with her hand on the doorknob. She was scared to go in, but knew she couldn't be anywhere else.

She went inside and was instantly overwhelmed with the sense of her child. Everything was just how she had left it the Friday morning they left for school – when Katniss had promised herself she'd make Mercy clean it up when she got home. That never happened, and it had stayed a mess. Clothes were strewn about the floor, paper was ripped from the easel, Barbies were hanging halfway off of her dresser; everything was askew. Katniss padded her way inside, dodging the mess, and crawled under the covers of the unmade bed.

She pressed her face into Mercy's pillow and took in a deep breath, holding the sweater tight to her chest. If she pretended hard enough, it almost felt like Mercy was right there, in Katniss's arms where she should be.

She didn't eat during the days leading up to the funeral. She somehow kept track of time in her mind, and when the sun rose on the morning of the 26th, she realized she had missed Christmas and it hadn't mattered.

Christmas no longer held meaning because she no longer had a child to share it with.

But her funeral was that day. She turned over in Mercy's bed and slipped out of the room, reluctantly getting in the shower for the first time in days. As the hot water ran over her skin, the last of Mercy's fingerprints swirled down the drain.

She stared at the fish-shaped shampoo and conditioner that sat on the shower ledge for at least five straight minutes and then pushed them behind her big bottles of organic product. She couldn't bear to throw them away, but wanted to forget they were there.

Mercy was around every corner.

Katniss got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself, dripping as she walked into her bedroom to stand in front of her closet and stare blankly. She was picking out what to wear to her child's funeral. She tried to cry, but no tears would come. She wondered if it was possible to be too sad to cry. She ended up picking a knee-length, long-sleeved black dress with lace at the shoulders.

Katniss pulled up to the church, which was red-brick faced with an impossibly tall steeple, and stared all the way up to the top. She didn't know who would be coming; Peeta had said he would organize it all. She didn't know how he managed.

Before taking another step towards the building, she felt a gentle hand on her back. Looking over, she saw her best friend, Madge.

"I'm so sorry, Katniss," she said, and gave Katniss a gentle hug. Madge hadn't seen Mercy since she was a toddler; she was busy with kids of her own.

Katniss didn't have a word to say in return. She nodded silently, and the two stared at each other for a strange moment before Madge patted her, turned her lips down in a frown, and made her way inside.

The instances kept coming, though Katniss didn't know who half of the people were. She recognized Gale, her close friend from home, but he wouldn't so much as look at her. She realized that when a child died, no one knew how to react. No one knew what to say.

And they shouldn't.

She found her way inside and stood in the entryway with her nose practically touching the wall. She wasn't ready for this, to be around all these people who were looking at her like she was an animal that had just gotten hit by a car. She didn't want this. She didn't want their sympathy. She wanted one thing and one thing only, and that was something she would never have again.

"Katniss," she heard his voice before she saw him. "Katniss, there you are."

His fingertips touched her shoulder softly, and she slowly turned around to see Peeta standing there dressed in black slacks, a black button-up, and a black tie.

"Peeta." His name was the first word she had said in days. He pulled her to his chest and held tightly; she felt his breathing hitch in his throat as his chin rested on top of her head. She trembled against him with every inhalation, but he held her steady. "This church," she said, "it's really beautiful."

His voice cracked when he tried to speak; it took him two or three times to get it clear. "We used to pass it on our Sunday drives, me and her," he said, the words wavering when he spoke again, "she always would say how much she liked it."

Katniss nodded, pulling her lips between her teeth to stop herself from crying.

"I think I'm… I'm going to say a few words," he said, holding her at arm's length and moving a piece of hair from her forehead. "I didn't know if you'd want to, too."

She shook her head quickly, a knee-jerk reaction. "I can't," she said quietly, and began to wring her hands. "I can't."

"It's okay," he said, and leaned forward to press his lips to her forehead.

Moments later, Delly walked up dressed in a charcoal-gray dress that was just a little too big for her. She spent a moment just looking between the two of them, her mouth set in a pensive frown, wringing her hands.

"I'm sorry," she finally said, and touched Katniss's forearm. Katniss pulled away, tucking her arm close to her body. Another awkward silence followed. Katniss wished badly that Delly would leave. It was obvious she was desperately searching for the right words to say.

"The good always die young," Delly finally said, "God doesn't want to wait for his best angels."

Katniss felt angry bile rise in her throat and she clenched her fists at her sides. Peeta braced his hand on the small of her back, just below Delly's field of vision, and she tried to breathe slowly to calm herself down. Delly should've kept her mouth shut.

"You don't know me or my child," Katniss said, raising her gray eyes slowly to meet Delly's. She shook her head slowly and felt her face heat up.

"I didn't mean…" Delly trailed off, then looked to Peeta for assistance. He didn't offer any.

"Excuse me," Katniss said, and then rushed out of the room.

The wake was still going on. Peeta had come from it, and Katniss lingered outside the entryway with her back pressed against the door. Peering in, she could see the coffin at the far end of the room with the lid open. The wood was glistening beautifully under the soft light, and the coffin was so, so small.

No one else was in the front of the room, they were all gathered at the back milling about, talking amongst themselves in hushed tones. Katniss swallowed hard and knew if she didn't go look at her daughter one last time, she would regret it for the rest of her life.

As she walked down the aisle between the pews, she felt many pairs of eyes on her, but she kept going. When she got there, she held onto the edge of the casket for support as her knees went weak, and then opened her eyes down onto Mercy's sweet face.

It took her breath away. Before they left the hospital, Peeta had asked what Katniss wanted her buried in, and she had told him the red velvet dress from last Christmas. She had forgotten how darling it looked on their little girl, hugging her tiny shoulders just right and fanning out at her knees. Her fingers were laced together over her ribs, and if Katniss looked hard enough, she swore she could see a hint of a smile on Mercy's closed lips.

Without thinking, she reached inside and ran the back of her hand down her daughter's cheek. She hadn't been prepared for how cold her skin would be, and she flinched away out of instinct.

Her fingers started to tremble, and she saw her tears fall in dots onto Mercy's neck, disrupting the setting powder that had been dusted over her skin.

As Katniss looked down at her porcelain daughter, she knew it wasn't Mercy lying in front of her. It would never be Mercy again.

Katniss clutched the sides of the coffin with white knuckles. "This should have never happened." She sniffled away tears. "I failed you," she said, "I love you more than anything, and I failed you."

She let her chin fall to hit her chest and her shoulders deflated inward. She didn't know how long she would've stayed had Peeta not come up behind her and led her to the first pew. Her head stayed ducked with her hands covering her face, and he sat down with his hip pressed to hers and his arm secured around her shoulders while they listened to the minister say words she would not remember.

The service was a blur until Peeta leaned in close and whispered in her ear, "I'm going to go up now. Are you going to be okay here?" She gave a curt nod and folded her hands together on her lap, forcing herself to look up to watch him; the sole other person who had loved Mercy as much as she did.

Peeta looked out at the crowd, surveying everyone who was watching. Katniss turned around and followed his eyes, then immediately turned back. So many people had come.

In the back of the church, she saw three different families with children whom she recognized on their laps. Mercy's three best friends from school: Kyla, Blaire and TJ. Their parents were holding them extra tight.

"Mercy was my little fighter," he said, a hint of a smile on his lips. "As most of you know, she wasn't even supposed to make it to term. She had a bad heart, that was the first thing we ever knew about her. When she was a few days old, she had open heart surgery. They didn't know if she'd survive that either, but she did. She pulled through. She not only survived, but she thrived. She grew beautifully. Though her mom and I weren't a couple, together we loved her more than anything else in the world. Love, actually, in the present tense. That love is not gone." He paused and cleared his throat, glancing down at the index cards in front of him. "She'd get sick off and on. We got used to it after a while. But it wasn't anything that would keep her from doing things that kids her age did. She danced ballet. She took swimming lessons. She went through a biting phase." The last part received a few scattered laughs from the audience. "She was our kid. Our child, our baby girl. We both agreed that she was the greatest accomplishment of our lives." Katniss felt her throat close. Her eyes burned, and when she blinked, multiple tears fell onto her tights-covered knees. "She was an angel for Halloween when she was three," he said, and a picture of Mercy dressed in her white, gauzy angel costume was blown up on the projection screen behind him.

Katniss lost her breath for a moment as she stared at their daughter; her chin jutted forward with a cheesy grin, her blue eyes crinkled at the corners with a smile, her hair curled in ringlets special for that night. Her surroundings were dark, being as it was nighttime on Halloween, only she and her white costume were lighting up the photo. Katniss could see her hands on Mercy's shoulders, directing her towards the flash of Peeta's camera, but nothing more of her body. They had done Halloween together that year, per Mercy's request.

"When I look at this picture…" his voice broke, and he took a second to regain composure, "when I look at this picture, I have to tell myself that this is how happy she is now. She's an angel, a real live one, as she would say, in a place where she's no longer hurting." He sighed deeply. "I'm not in a better place with her gone. I miss her smile, I miss her laugh, I miss her telling me about school when I saw her on the weekends. But to get through the day… I have to tell myself that she's happy."

Katniss was openly weeping, tears flowing down her cheeks as she listened to Peeta speak. "Her mother used to sing her a song," he said, and then knelt down beneath the podium. When he came up, the first notes of _Your Song_ were playing softly under his voice. "I never knew how much the lyrics would mean to me. When she was born, she was our miracle. Just like the song says, I hope you don't mind that I put down in words…how wonderful life is now that you're in the world. And life _was_ wonderful while she was in the world. She made everything better." His voice hitched, and he started to sob without holding back anymore. "And then her time here ended. Her little life has come to a close now. It may be quite simple but…now that it's done." He took in a deep breath. "She was wonderful while she was here." There was a long pause while Peeta wiped his eyes. "She showed me a child's innocence, she taught me how to learn, how to take life in with an open mind. She helped me see the world through her eyes," he said. "Whenever we told Mercy we loved her, she'd say back: 'I love you best.'" Katniss chewed on her lower lip and ran her palms over her knees. "This time, it's my turn to say it. Mercy, I love you best. You fought hard, baby, and now it's time for you to be at peace. It's time for you to go on and go home. Just promise you'll wait for us with your angel wings on. Goodbye, my little girl."

He stepped down from the podium and rejoined Katniss and they wept together over who they had lost.

As they stood and watched Mercy's casket get lowered into the ground, the minister continued to talk but his words didn't soak in. What did soak in was the light dusting of snow that was falling from the sky; the first snowfall of the season.

The flakes landed on Katniss's shoulders, standing out against her black coat, and she lifted her chin to squint against the glaringly white sky. "She wanted to see it," Katniss whispered under her breath, and her voice caught Peeta's attention.

"Hmm?" he said quietly, keeping his voice under the speaker's.

"The snow," she said, lowering her gaze to lock with his. "She wanted to see it so badly."

Peeta grasped her hand and held it tight. She could feel their pulses beat together.

When the coffin was in the ground, they invited handfuls of dirt to be dropped down onto it. Peeta stepped forward without hesitating, not releasing Katniss's hand, gently pulling her to come with him. She planted her feet and stayed put, shaking her head.

He dropped her hand and went ahead without her, picking up a soft handful of soil and gently tossing it down to where his daughter lay.

Katniss turned her back and started walking. To where, she didn't know. She just needed to be away from that scene. It was freezing outside, and all she could think about was how cold Mercy must be.

She wrapped her arms around herself and tears dripped down her cheeks, threatening to freeze once they were exposed to the frigid air. She was trembling, both from the cold and sheer emotion, but did her best to ignore it and keep walking. She walked until she stopped hearing her footsteps in the crunchy grass and the only sound in her ears was that of her own ragged breathing.

She found her way to her car and got inside, cranking the heat immediately. As her bones thawed, her teeth stopped chattering and she sat there staring out the front windshield as it fogged up with the temperature change.

She didn't know how long she sat there. But without saying goodbye to anyone, she started the car and drove home.


	6. Six

When Peeta got home with Delly, they entered the house silently. He looked for Katniss after the service was over, but she had disappeared. He knew if she left so quietly like she had, she didn't want to be found. So he didn't try.

He knew how badly she was hurting, because he felt the same throbbing hole in his chest. They had just buried their five-year-old daughter. He couldn't think about it without tears springing to his eyes; so as he sat at the edge of the ottoman in the living room, he put his face in his hands and let himself cry.

Delly hurried over and scooted next to him, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders. "Oh, Peeta," she said, and kissed his temple. "I am so sorry."

He shook his head quickly. He didn't want to hear another apology for as long as he lived.

"Your eulogy was beautiful," she said softly, rubbing his back. "I don't know how you do it, think of the words that you do. You always know just what to say."

That's not how it felt. He felt like nothing he said could've done Mercy's life justice.

"Thanks," he managed to say, and sniffed in. He lifted his head and looked at her; her wide, unblinking green eyes, the sallow hint of her skin, the downward pull in the corners of her mouth. "I think…I think I just need to be alone for a while."

She let go of him instantly. "Oh…okay," she said, "I understand."

"It's nothing against you," he said, standing up and brushing the wrinkles from his dress pants. "I just…I'm going to go into her room for a while. Don't wait up for me…I just need some time, okay?"

She nodded shakily and he felt her eyes on his back as he trudged up the stairs. He walked into Mercy's room and expected to feel a huge rush of emotion seeing everything laid out before him; her purple beanbag with M.P.E embroidered in white script, the music box with the ballerina that he spun for her each night before she went to bed, the stack of books on the shelf by her window that he planned on reading her on whatever night he tucked her in last. But he felt nothing.

Her bed was made up tight; she hadn't slept in it the night she was there. Peeta sat on the edge of it and leaned forward, his elbows sharp against his knees, and let out a big sigh.

It didn't smell like her. It wasn't messy with evidence that she had been here just days ago. He stood up and went to the mirror where a strip of photobooth photos was shoved, and pulled it out.

He and Mercy had been at the mall; he usually never spent money on that type of stuff, but for some reason that day he had. There were four frames. In the first she was on his lap and smiling so wide that her eyes were crunched shut. In the second, their cheeks were puffed out, eyes crossed, ears pulled out like monkeys. The third, she had her arms thrown around his neck, only the back of her hair and his smiling face visible. The fourth frame was where she looked the most like Katniss – arms crossed in front of her and a fake scowl on her face. He stuck the strip back in the mirror and then stared back at his reflection. Her spirit wasn't there.

The snow piled up outside as Katniss lay in Mercy's bed, facing the picture window, clutching the blue sweater to her chest. She kept the door to her daughter's bedroom shut so the scent of her would stay, but she had been inside it for so many days that she had long since grown accustomed.

She tried to sleep when she could, but most of the time she just laid there with her eyes open, watching the outside world freeze.

She began to lose track of time. At first, she had taken it hour by hour, then day by day. But after that, everything ran together and she didn't know how long she'd been in Mercy's room, trying to figure out how to live a life without her.

Death had never seemed like it would happen to Mercy. Even though she was born with a defective heart and lived her life a little differently than kids her age, Katniss never realistically thought that she would die. She never thought that she'd have to live life without the person that made living so wonderful.

She missed Mercy's little body against hers, she missed her fingers toying with her braid, she missed the soft whisper of her lips against her cheek. She missed everything about her. Her body ached with sadness and loss.

She had been in the same pair of pajamas ever since she got back from the funeral – baggy checkered pants and a t-shirt from a walkathon that Mercy's school had hosted the year before. She had heard her phone ringing for the first couple days, but it eventually stopped. She wasn't sure if it the battery lost its charge or if people just stopped trying.

Katniss rolled over onto her back with the sweater laid flat on her stomach. She stroked it as she stared up at the ceiling and could practically hear Mercy's little voice in her ear.

 _Am I going to die?_

Katniss pressed her eyes closed and felt new tears leak from the sides. When she and Peeta had told her that _no, she wouldn't_ , she had no idea that they had been lying.

She felt like she was completely alone; the people who had kept her anchored to the earth had disappeared from her life. Prim and Mercy had died and she doubted she would ever see Peeta again.

All of her emotions were at capacity. She had no idea which one to feel first, so she tried to shut them all off and go numb. It was easier that way.

A week later, Peeta was trying his best to do some work from home when his phone rang with an unfamiliar number on the screen.

"Hello?" he answered, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder as he typed an email on his laptop. The bakery was running fine on its own; he was keeping up with his employees via text and email. Since he owned the business, he could take off as much time as he needed, and he planned on it.

"Peeta Mellark?" It was a woman's voice; a woman he didn't recognize.

"Speaking," he said, furrowing his eyebrows.

"I'm calling on behalf of Katniss Everdeen, you're listed as her first emergency contact," the woman said. "She works for us as our brand manager, and she hasn't shown up for work in about two weeks or so and we can't seem to get a hold of her. I wanted to reach out to you to make sure everything is okay, and ask if she'll be returning."

Peeta sighed and stopped typing. "Oh, she…" he stammered. How was he supposed to explain what happened without crying on the phone to a stranger? "Katniss…is okay, at least I think she is." He realized that he hadn't heard from her or been over to check on her. He convinced himself that it had slipped his mind, though he knew that wasn't the truth at all. "We just had a…death in the family." His chest deflated when he said it. "She's…we're still grieving."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," the woman said.

"Thank you," he said, sighing again. "I'm not sure when she'll be back, but I know that she will. I'll go over to her house today and talk to her. I'll tell her to give you guys a call."

The woman thanked him and he hung up, shutting his laptop. He stood up from the table, put his boots on and left the house without leaving so much as a note for Delly.

The snow was falling thick as a blanket as he drove down Lakeshore Drive to Lincoln Park. He had been so selfish to not go over sooner, he knew that. He had tried to call Katniss the day after the funeral, but when she hadn't answered after three times, he decided to give her space. He knew now that it had been the wrong decision.

He pulled in front of her walkup, parallel parked, and flipped through his keys to find the ones he needed. She had given him a spare set after Mercy was born in case of an emergency, and he was pretty sure this counted. He unlocked the gate, the front door, and then walked into a very silent, cold house.

It gave him shivers to be standing in the kitchen alone. Everything looked barren, and he couldn't put his finger on why. The lights were off and winter was casting a blue tint to the rooms that gave him a chill. He glanced around the room and saw that everything was spotless, like it hadn't been touched in weeks, and he came to the realization that it probably hadn't.

He kicked off his snowy boots and set them by the door, noticing the duffel bag that had been at the hospital shunned to the corner. He averted his eyes quickly away from it.

"Katniss?" he called out. He didn't want to sneak up on her. "Katniss, it's me."

No answer. He hadn't expected one.

He padded through the kitchen and into the living room, which looked a bit more lived in. The blankets were messy on the couch from where he and Katniss had rested that one night, and there was a cascade of toys spilling out from the toy box by the TV. A lump grew in Peeta's throat and he moved on upstairs.

The wooden steps creaked under his weight, and as he ran his fingers along the wall when he ascended, he realized why everything looked so barren.

All of Mercy's pictures had been taken down.

His eyes grew hot and he blinked hard to force the tears away. He could practically see Mercy running down this hallway and into Katniss's room, making a flying leap onto her mother's bed.

"Katniss?" he peeked his head into the bathroom and saw nothing, but flipped on the light anyway. There was a small frame she had forgotten to remove, situated between the two sinks. He lifted it up to his face and studied it, a watery smile appearing as he did so. It was one of the rare times they had spent time together when Mercy was little, because he knew that he had been the one to take the photo.

Katniss was lying on a bed dressed in white pajamas, but most of her body wasn't visible. Only her ankles, feet and hands were in the picture, and Mercy's toddler body was balanced on the bottoms of her feet; Katniss's hands gripping the little girl's wrists as Mercy looked down at her with her face broken out in an open-mouthed smile. Her dark hair was in a messy ponytail, and she was dressed in only a diaper. Peeta vaguely remembered the day, and found himself wishing it was clearer.

He took the photo out of its frame and slipped it into his pocket, then glanced up at the mirror. His eyes caught on something that was at the perfect level for a little girl standing on the counter – a pair of handprints frozen in time, stuck to the mirror with what looked like toothpaste.

Peeta stared at her handprints for what felt like forever, resisting the urge to reach out and touch them. He didn't want to ruin them.

Involuntarily, his body started to rack with sobs. Mercy was gone, and she was never coming back. He placed his hands on either sides of the little prints and through his blurred vision, looked at the size difference. She would never grow any bigger.

He would never take her to a father-daughter dance, never see her get her driver's license, never see her get married and have children of her own.

Their only daughter was gone forever, and it was sinking in for the very first time.

Peeta stumbled out of the bathroom and didn't need to consciously think as to where Katniss was. "Katniss," he said, right outside Mercy's door. He got no answer, so he turned the knob and then saw her lying on the little bed, facing the big window. "Katniss."

She didn't make any sort of motion that she had heard him, but he saw her side rising and falling with each breath. He walked slowly to the bedside and sat down in the bend of her knees, looking down at her face to see her gray eyes wide open and unblinking. He reached down and petted her hair, but she didn't budge.

She was holding the blue sweater – clutching it, actually – to her chest like she could somehow bring Mercy back through it.

"Your work called me," he said, still petting her hair. He saw her swallow. "I was still listed as your emergency contact. They're worried about you." She didn't say a word in response. "I said I'd talk to you. I told them you'd come back, but I didn't know when." He sniffed; it was obvious he'd been crying. "I'm sorry I didn't come earlier," he said shamefully.

She blinked. She didn't look up at him, but she blinked.

"You're all alone in this big house, I know I should've come sooner," he said, bowing his head. "I haven't been dealing with…" he shook his head and pressed his lips together. "I don't think you have, either."

She rolled on her back and looked at him, her eyes devoid of any feeling.

"How long have you been in these pajamas?" he asked, running the fabric through his fingers. She stayed silent. "Please talk to me," he begged.

She rolled back over onto her side, hugging the sweater closer still.

He sighed. "I'm going to get you some food. You look skinny, Katniss. Too skinny. You'll eat."

She didn't say anything, so he got up and went down to the kitchen. He chopped ingredients for fresh soup and put them on the stove, waiting while they simmered and stewed. When the soup was finished, the winter sun had sunk and the house was colder. He turned the heat up, poured the soup in a big bowl, and went back upstairs.

The smell had wafted all the way up, and he could hear Katniss's stomach as soon as he walked through the door. "Here," he said, offering it to her on a tray. "Sit up."

She didn't move.

"Katniss, sit up. You need to eat."

Her bones seemed to creak as she came to a sitting position, and her shoulders hunched forward like an elderly person's. But at least she was upright.

He set the tray on her knees. "Eat," he coaxed, nodding with encouragement.

She didn't move a muscle. He realized that she couldn't do it on her own.

He braced one hand between her birdlike shoulder blades and used the other to dip the spoon in the soup, then lift it to her mouth. She obediently parted her lips and he tipped the spoon inside as she closed her mouth around it. She stared blankly ahead the entire time, but ate voraciously.

He couldn't help but be reminded of feeding Mercy when she was a baby, but he wouldn't let himself dwell on the thought.

When Katniss finished the soup, he went into her bedroom and found a new pair of pajamas and her hairbrush. He went back into Mercy's room and showed her what he brought, and lifted her shirt up over her head to change her. Though she wasn't wearing a bra, nothing about the instance was sexual. He draped the new shirt on over her head and helped her into clean pants, then sat behind her and ran the hairbrush through her long, greasy hair.

A bath would have to wait. He didn't think she was ready to move.

Katniss laid back down and stared up at the ceiling, the sweater tucked up close by her neck. Peeta glanced on the Hello Kitty alarm clock on the nightstand and saw that it was close to 10pm, and his phone had been buzzing uncontrollably in his pocket for the last three hours. He knew he had to get home.

"I-" he started to say, but Katniss's scratchy voice cut him off.

"Are you going leave again?" she asked, her eyes still directed upward. "Like when my sister died?"

He recoiled from her words, opening and closing his mouth, searching for an answer that would never be good enough.

"Katniss, I…" he said, but gave up. He leaned over her and kissed her forehead. "I will be back. I promise you, I'll be back every day."

She didn't look at him as he left.

Katniss hadn't believed Peeta when he said that he'd come back. After Prim died, she felt the same sense of loss and despair and pulled away from him not unlike she was doing now. He hadn't fought for her then, so she assumed that he'd take the same route again.

She realized she'd been wrong when she heard his footsteps on the steps around dinnertime the next day. She was sitting up in Mercy's bed not doing much of anything except listening to her stomach growl. Her body wanted her to eat, but she didn't have the gumption to do anything for herself. If it were up to her, she'd wither away and just cease to exist, easy as that.

"Hey," Peeta said, as he rounded the corner. She saw that he was carrying a loaf of ciabatta bread in one hand and a plate with a stick of butter on it in the other. His shoes were already off and he was dressed in more comfortable clothes than the day before. "Are you hungry?" he asked her.

Her voice box felt rusty from not using it all day, so she just nodded.

"I have more soup downstairs, let me go get it."

When he came back up, Katniss had already eaten half of the bread. He smiled, and she tried not to look guilty. "No, it's okay," he said, "it's for you. I brought it special for you."

Ciabatta had always been her favorite leftovers to get from the bakery at the end of the day, all the way back before Peeta owned it. She liked it best when it was close to being stale. That was what she was used to.

She ate furiously without trying to pace herself. He watched her as she did so, and then moved the dishes away once she was done.

"Thanks," she said, then cleared her throat. She was finding it hard to meet his eyes because he was looking at her like she was a dying animal on the side of the road, just like the funeral guests had been. She glanced up a couple times through her eyelashes only to find him still staring. "Can you stop?" she asked, bristling.

He recoiled. "I'm sorry," he said. "I left that downstairs for you yesterday, in case you wanted to make it yourself during the day today." She didn't respond. "Have you called your job?"

"No, Peeta, I haven't called my job," she said, feeling her face grow hot. She laid back down.

He looked at her, his eyes defiant. "Katniss, don't-"

"My five-year-old just died, Peeta," she snapped.

" _Our_ five-year-old," he said, narrowing his blue eyes that matched Mercy's just perfectly.

She clenched her teeth. "I know that. It was an accident."

His shoulders deflated forward a bit and he stood up from the little bed. "You've been in her room for weeks, Katniss," he said. "I think it's time to come out. Shower."

She shook her head. "I can't."

"You can't what?"

"Come out. Shower. Do anything." She turned over on her side.

He pulled the covers down off of her body. "I'm not asking, Katniss," he said. "It's time."

She rolled over slowly and glared at him with such power that it almost knocked him back. Her chest heaved with anger and her cheeks flushed red, looking at him with his open face, well-meaning eyes and outstretched hands.

"I wish I could yell at you," she said.

He shrugged one shoulder, turning over her statement in his mind. "You could totally yell at me."

She looked at him exasperatedly. "You're kidding, right?" she asked. "I would never yell at you. Not after…everything."

The word was loaded. It had many more meanings than just one; it reached all the way back to his mother. Katniss would never raise her voice to Peeta because of what he had to go through as a child, and he knew that.

She eventually gave in to him and left the room, vowing out loud that she would come back after she bathed.

When she walked, her knees wobbled and she had to hold onto Peeta for support. "I don't think a shower is the best idea," he said, and helped her sit down onto the closed toilet lid. "I'll run the bath for you." The sat together in silence in the bathroom as the hot water filled up the roomy tub. "Do you want anything special in it?" he asked, peering up at the shower shelf to see what sort of bath accessories she had.

She shrugged and said, "doesn't matter."

"I like the way this cinnamon one smells," he said, and dropped it in.

Katniss let out a one-syllable laugh. "Of course you do," she said, as she watched it fizz up the water and turn it amber.

"It's ready," he said, "do you need help?"

She was too ashamed to answer him out loud, but luckily he had always been good at reading her mind. He helped lift her shirt over her head, and knelt as he pulled her underwear and drawstring pants over her hips, then held her steady as she stepped out of them. He guided her into the water with a firm hand on her shoulders, and when she was finally sitting down in it, her tense muscles relaxed.

The water smelled good; warm and reminiscent of the bakery she hadn't realized she missed so much. With her eyes closed, she could still sense Peeta there with her and just his presence was enough. They didn't speak for a long time, not until she broke the silence herself.

"We shouldn't have taken her to the fountain," she said, voicing the thought that had been eating away at her.

Peeta didn't answer immediately. She opened her eyes to see him staring at the floor, shoulders hunched by his ears.

"We couldn't have known," he said quietly. "That wasn't what caused it, though. You have to know that."

"It didn't help," she said, drawing her knees to her chest and resting her cheek on them.

"It made her happy," he said.

"We still shouldn't have done it," Katniss insisted, lifting her head up. "Maybe she would…she might still be here if we hadn't taken her."

Peeta locked his eyes with hers for a long moment and she realized that they both knew that wasn't true.

"She had a stroke, Katniss," he said gently, moving from the toilet lid to the floor next to the tub, "it wasn't something that…"

"I know," she said, and laid her head the other way so the back of her hair was facing him. She felt his fingers run through it, and then heard him pick up the cup on the lip of the tub that she had always used to wash Mercy's hair with. He dunked it in the water and poured it over her head, getting it ready for shampoo. The water trickled down her back and shoulders again and again as he refilled the cup until her hair was soaked through.

He reached for the shampoo and conditioner, the big organic product, but Katniss stopped his arm. She pulled out the blue fish-shaped L'Oreal bottles and handed them to him wordlessly, and he didn't protest. When he squirted the shampoo into his palm, the smell that overtook the bathroom was like Mercy was standing right next to them. He massaged it into Katniss's hair, getting it deep into the roots, and she let her eyes close. His were the only hands she still trusted.

When her hair was clean, he soaped up a loofa and gently washed her collarbones, her shoulder blades, down her back; he lifted up her arms to clean her armpits, and ran the loofa down her legs, too. When he was finished, she was literally sparkling with the glitter that the bath bomb had shed, and he wrapped her up in a yellow towel and held her close to his chest. She could hear his heartbeat beating strong under her ear as she rested her temple against it.

"Wait here," he said, leaving her in the steamy bathroom for just a moment. When he came back, he was toting blue-and-white striped pajama pants and the Chicago Bears t-shirt. "I brought this for you."

"But I hate this shirt," she said, taking it from him greedily.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, "arms up."

He helped her into her pajamas and gave her a lasting kiss on the forehead. Her eyes blinked slowly, tiredly; the bath was the most activity she'd had all day, and it was all that she could take.

Katniss sat with him on Mercy's bed, resting in his lap as he essentially cradled her. With her eyes closed, she said "I want to be with her, Peeta."

He pressed his lips to her forehead, but didn't respond. She hadn't expected him to.

"I wanted to look at this with you," he said, and pulled something from his pocket. She opened her eyes and saw the picture from the bathroom – one that she must have forgotten to take down – in his wide palm.

"What are you doing with this?" she asked, touching the corners of the photo.

"I think I can remember this day," he said, "this was her third birthday party and it was just the three of us. And after this, we took her to a play downtown, but she fell asleep during it."

Katniss shook her head. Her eyes burned. "This was her second birthday," she said, and pointed to the diaper that was the only article of clothing that Mercy was wearing. "Not quite potty-trained. She was a big girl by three." The first tears of that numb day started to fall, and her body trembled. "And after this, we took her to special birthday breakfast at Jam 'N Honey and then to the beach. I can still…" she couldn't finish her sentence because she was sobbing too hard. She buried her face in Peeta's shirt and his grip around her tightened as he rocked her back and forth just slightly.

She was going to say that she could still picture Mercy running as fast as she could, arms straight out on either side of her body, hair whipping behind her along with her cherry-printed dress, her squeals and giggles being carried away by the roaring lake. She could still feel the warm weight of her little body's impact when Mercy ran into her arms at full force. That day was so clear that she could almost reach out and grab it.

"She'll always be our baby," Peeta said, nuzzling the top of her hair.

Katniss continued to sob. Nothing he could say would be able to fix the ragged hole that Mercy had left.

As the weeks passed, Katniss found herself waiting expectantly for Peeta each day. When the sun began to sink below the horizon, she had something to look forward to because she knew he would be coming over soon.

She had made a call to her work explaining her absence, and they were going to welcome her back whenever she felt ready. She stopped spending every waking minute in Mercy's bedroom, but still retreated there to cry and to sleep.

Each day of the week, Peeta made something different for her dinner. She had never eaten so well, not since they had been together. By the time he left each night, her belly was full and her spirits were higher than they'd been the entire day preceding his arrival.

She waited for him in the window seat on a Friday, her thin legs tucked under her and one of her shoulders pressed against the cool pane. It was still snowing outside; knowing Chicago winters, the snow would continue for months to come.

She watched the road intently; mostly so she would know when Peeta's Honda CRV was coming, but also so she wouldn't be tempted to look around at the very bare walls surrounding her. She hated seeing the photos down, but she wasn't sure if she could handle seeing them up, either.

When Peeta came rolling up through the snow, her stomach jumped and she felt her heart start to beat a little faster. The tiniest hint of a smile even found its way to her lips, and that was something that had been incredibly rare to see.

He used his key to unlock his way inside, and she heard him stomping the snow from his boots before he came in the front door. "K?" he called, "I brought some groceries. I thought I'd put you to work tonight and you could help me with dinner for once, lazy ass."

He came around the corner and she saw that he was grinning; his smile warm against the freezing air he brought inside.

He hugged her with his coat still on, and tiny specks of snow drifted down onto her. "Brr," she shivered, wrapping her arms around herself once he let go.

"Oops, sorry," he said, and turned around to hang his coat up. "So what do you think about dinner, you up for it?"

She sighed, stood up and followed him into her kitchen. "Peeta, I don't know…" she said, leaning back against the counter. "I don't want to make something hard."

He rolled his eyes and lifted up the Whole Foods bag onto the counter. He probably stopped there before he came, there was one right down the road. He lifted a round, pre-made crust out from it and slapped it playfully down onto the countertop.

"Is pizza too hard for you, sweetheart?" he asked, and chuckled.

Katniss rolled her eyes. "If you would've said that to begin with, I would've never put up a fight," she said, then started to unwrap the crust. "Start the oven."

"Hey, I'm the baker," he said, "I tell _you_ want to do."

She scoffed. "When has that ever worked for you?" she asked, and then hip checked him in the direction of the oven. "400."

He went along with her demands as usual, then came back over and cracked open a can of sauce to spread over the crust. Katniss knew that pizza was a Friday night tradition between he and Mercy, but she didn't say it out loud. She didn't want to mar this moment with sadness, even though she wanted to bring Mercy into the picture. She knew she couldn't without upsetting one or both of them, so she kept things easy. He did, too.

"I want-"

"Already know what you want," she said, cutting him off. "Extra cheese, sausage, onion, and bacon. No anchovies, so I'm putting extra anchovies."

"Bitch," he said, laughing.

They sprinkled the ingredients onto the pizza together, then slid it into the oven. When it was done, the smell filled the house and Katniss's stomach growled loudly.

"You'd think I haven't been feeding you," Peeta said, slipping on oven mitts and pulling the pizza out when the timer dinged. Katniss giggled and curled a tendril of her hair behind her ear. "Did I just hear a giggle from you, Katniss Everdeen?" he asked, raising his eyebrows in her direction. "Katniss Everdeen doesn't giggle."

"Shut up," she said.

"That's more like it."

She rolled her eyes and smiled. "Thank you, by the way," she said, hardly able to meet his eyes as he cut the pizza into eights. "For…everything."

He shook his head. "Don't thank me," he said. "You'd do it for me."

They ate together, enjoying what they'd created, and as they were putting the dishes away the wind started howling outside. It whipped against the house and made hollow sounds through the gutters, and when they looked out the window they couldn't even see the university housing that was right across the street.

"She never liked those sounds," Peeta said, staring intently out the window.

Mercy had never been one for storms. She would always sprint to Katniss's room and jump into bed with her, snuggling into her side until morning.

"I don't like them, either," Katniss admitted, and Peeta looked at her, then wrapped his arm around her shoulders for comfort.

Peeta stayed to watch a movie, and ended up falling asleep on the couch with his heavy head rested on Katniss's shoulder. Instinctively, he inhaled sharply right when the credits started to roll and rubbed his eyes with his fists like a tired child.

Katniss swiped a blonde curl from his forehead and said, "hey."

"Sorry for falling asleep…" he said, his voice raspy and rough.

"It's okay," she said.

"I'll get you up to bed," he said, and then guided her up from the couch. Once they were up the stairs, she paused at Mercy's doorway, but as he kept walking he turned around and gave her a meaningful look. "I was hoping to stay until you fell asleep," he said, "The wind is still blowing pretty bad out there. And, Katniss, I can't fit in her bed with you."

Katniss paused for a long time with her hand on the doorknob of the room she'd been so attached to for the past few weeks. She debated going inside anyway and telling Peeta he could sleep wherever he wanted, but knew she couldn't force herself to be that removed.

She needed him.

"Okay," she agreed quietly, and followed him into her room.

She laid down on the bed in the Chicago Bears t-shirt, and opened the covers for him to join her. He sat upright against the headboard and pulled her body against his so she fit nicely in his arms, her head rested on his chest.

As she fell asleep, he toyed with the wispy hair at the base of her neck and ran his fingertips down the arm he could reach. It was the first night she had gotten decent rest in a long, long time.


	7. Seven

Peeta woke up the next day in the same position he had unwittingly fallen asleep in; Katniss was still in his arms, her head on his chest and one of her legs hooked around his. Her breath was coming slow, sweet, and steady; he couldn't bear to wake her.

He pet her silky hair, soft since he'd been washing it with kids' shampoo. She snuggled closer against him and nuzzled her cheek against his chest. He smiled to himself and ran one hand down between her shoulder blades to rest on the indent of her waist before her hip, stroking her side with his thumb.

Being with her made living less painful. When he was with her, he felt like he had a fighting chance at regaining a normal life while still remembering what they'd once had.

Katniss stirred and hugged his waist unconsciously, squeezing him with one arm as she woke up. She let out a long, sleepy sigh, and he scratched her back with his nails. "Morning," he said.

"Peeta?" she said, lifting up her head to blink hard at him. He swiped an eyelash off of her cheekbone. "What're you still doing here?"

"I fell asleep," he said. It was a Saturday. There was no work to be missed. But he knew that there would be implications following his stay once he got home, and they already sat like a stone in his gut.

"Oh, I'm sorry for crushing you all night," she said, but laid her head back down anyway. "I didn't know you'd stay."

He knew it was her first night not sleeping in Mercy's room, and he was glad that he'd been there to help her through it.

"K, I should go, though," he said, and she unraveled her limbs from his. "Are you gonna be alright here?"

She nodded. "I am every other day,"

"Right," he said, and scrubbed his hand down his stubbly face. "I'll see you soon." He leaned over her on the bed, his hands braced on the mattress, and gave her a quick, habitual kiss on the lips. It was so routine that it went unnoticed by both of them.

He trotted down the stairs and picked up his phone, which he had left on the table by the couch. When he pressed the Home button, he saw 15 missed calls and around unread 30 texts, all from Delly, asking where he was. He didn't bother listening to the voicemails, he already knew what they would say. He knew he just had to get home and fix this.

When Peeta walked through his front door, Delly stormed him before he could get far. "Peeta. Jesus, you're alive," she said, sounding relieved and angry all at once. She threw her arms around him and clung tight, and he hugged her back. "You really scared me. You couldn't answer a single text? A single phone call?" She pulled away from him and her green eyes were ignited with anger.

"I'm sorry, Dell," he said, kicking off his shoes. "I fell asleep.

"The weather was horrible last night," she said, "I thought you got in a crash and were dead somewhere on the side of the road."

He looked pointedly at her for a long time after her words struck the air.

"God, I didn't mean to say it like that," she said, "you know I didn't. Stop looking at me like that."

He sighed. "You didn't need to be worried. I was just over helping Katniss and fell asleep after dinner. It was nothing, and I know I've gotten bad at answering your texts and stuff, but it's hard for me to remember when so much at that house reminds me of…you know, her. I have a lot on my mind over there."

Delly shifted her weight to one side, her lips pursed in obvious annoyance. "You've been with her every day for weeks, Peeta," she said. "Why do you keep going over there?" There was a small pause where she broke eye contact. "Like, I get it, but can't her family do anything?"

Peeta furrowed his eyebrows and felt himself grow defensive. "Well, seeing as Mercy was her only living relative, not really," he said, his voice clipped. "You don't get it."

Delly looked at him long and hard, the expression on her face changing with every passing second. He could practically see her thought process happening out in the open. "That's where you're wrong," she said, and he predicted a fight. Her tone was calm, though. "I do get it, Peeta." She laughed, sounding incredulous but not angry. "I get it now. You're her family." He opened his mouth to say something, but she didn't let him. "You just said it yourself. She has nothing left; nothing but you. I see that now." Delly nodded slowly, pressing her fingertips together in front of her. "I could never compete with that, and I don't want to. I'm not going to get in the way of family, Peeta," she said. "I'm just not. And…I've seen for a year now how much she needs you. But over the past couple weeks, I've seen for the first time how much you need her."

Peeta let her words sink in. "Delly, I…" He didn't have a plan for what he wanted to say, and he found that his mind was blank. "I'm sorry," was all that came out.

Her eyes glistened. "You don't have to apologize," she said, "you loved me as best as you could. But you and I both know that it was always going to be her."

The next Monday, Katniss went back to work. Instead of driving in the car that still had Mercy's booster seat in the back, she left earlier than usual and took the train.

As she sat there, elbows tucked into her body and knees pressed close together in her pencil skirt, her nerves had time to fester. She was a different person than the one who her coworkers had seen last, and she wasn't quite sure how to interact with people anymore.

She was tired of apologies, but people never knew what to say otherwise. They always felt the need to say something, though. She wished there was some way to tell them that they didn't have to say a word. Being silent was always the safer route to take.

Katniss hadn't seen Peeta since the morning they woke up together, but that was only two days ago. They'd briefly texted, but hadn't exchanged anything substantial. She had told him that she was okay alone on Sunday if he needed to be at home with Delly, and he had taken her up on the offer, which she hadn't expected him to do. She wasn't quite sure how she felt about that.

She got off the train at Jackson and pulled her coat tight around her. Even though she was wearing thick tights, chills coated her legs when the Chicago winter wind hit them as she ascended the stairs to ground level.

She wanted nothing less than to go back to work, but she knew she had to. There was no way to survive without an income, especially with the medical bills that she and Peeta were left with.

Trudging through the snow, she made her way to the tall, glass building. She rode the elevator to the 17th floor, and was met with a smile by the receptionist, Leevy.

"Morning, Katniss," she said sweetly, her voice quiet as usual. Katniss nodded her hello and made her way inside the office, avoiding eye contact with anyone else.

She wanted everyone to already know so they wouldn't ask. Either that, or she wanted them to be completely oblivious. She wasn't sure which was the better option.

Her office was exactly the same as she'd left it. Picture frames lined her desk, facing in. She faced them out. She opened a drawer to look for a pen, and an 8x10 copy of Mercy's kindergarten school picture, her latest one, was staring up at her.

It was in here because Katniss had meant to mail it to Peeta. She had never gotten to it.

She stared down at it, studying the small details she would have never thought to notice before. The small things didn't matter when she expected twelve more of Mercy's school pictures, but because her kindergarten one was the last she'd ever see, Katniss picked it up and stared at it.

The freckle on the tail end of her right eyebrow was almost invisible, blended in with her summer skin that was tanned from the sun. Katniss had braided her hair away from her face that day, but flyaway wisps were making their way out to surround her forehead, sticking up every which way. Her lips were the perfect shade of dusty pink, and her blue eyes of Peeta's shone against her olive skin. Katniss felt like she could reach through the picture and touch her daughter's little button nose, but all she could do was run her pointer finger over the matte surface of the photograph.

She wasn't sure how long she stared down at it, but a rapt knock at the door jolted her out of her reverie. When she looked up, she saw that it was Madge, looking pensive.

"Hey, Katniss," she said, slipping inside. She sat down on a chair against the wall and crossed one leg toward the desk. "It's so good to see you back." Katniss nodded, giving a watery smile. "I know you're probably sick of hearing this but…I'm just so sorry. I don't know what else to say."

Katniss nodded tersely, pursing her lips. "Thanks," she managed to say.

"I won't talk about her, you know, if you don't want me to."

"That's probably best," Katniss said, sliding the school picture back into the drawer. "I just…I…" her voice broke. "Not yet."

"I understand," Madge said. "I just wanted to welcome you back. Everyone is really happy to have you."

"Thanks, Madge," Katniss said, placing her palms flat on her desk. "Doing work will be good. It'll keep my mind busy."

So that's what she did. She threw herself into the catch-up work that had accrued over the weeks she had missed and did her best not to think of anything else. And it worked, at least until lunchtime when Madge knocked on the doorjamb of her office again.

"Someone's here for you," she said, and when Katniss looked up she saw that her friend was smiling slightly.

"Who is it?" she asked. "Can you tell them I'm busy? I'll be free in an hour or so."

"You better not tell me that," Peeta said, rounding the corner. "I'll start to think you're avoiding me."

Katniss felt herself lighten. Her pen rattled down to hit her desk, and she stood up halfway from her chair. "Peeta," she said with a smile; her first real one all day.

Madge disappeared and Katniss crossed her office to meet him. They hugged, lingering in each other's arms for longer than necessary, and Peeta rubbed her back heartily with one hand. The other one, she noticed, was holding a handful of pink carnations.

"What are these?" she asked, touching their soft petals.

"I thought they might brighten your first day back," he said, handing them to her. "I know it's cheesy. Like, really, really cheesy. But sometimes, I don't know, I just have to."

Katniss chuckled. "I'll bring them home. Set them in the middle of the table. Thanks, Peeta, they're gorgeous."

They left the office and braved the cold winter day to eat at a Corner Bakery a couple blocks away. As they walked in, Peeta judged their surroundings, but didn't say anything out loud. Katniss already knew what he was thinking; this place was sub-par compared to his bakery. He was right, but it was warm and quiet, and that was all she needed.

"I'll have a small mint mocha, extra pump of chocolate," she said, her hands braced on the counter, "and he'll have a medium dry cappuccino with an extra shot, heavy on the foam."

He looked at her pointedly once she was done ordering both the food and drinks. "You remembered," he said.

"Riding a bike," she said with a small smile, and led the way to the end of the counter where they'd pick up their order.

When they sat down in a booth, they were quiet for a while as they ate. Katniss just picked at hers, finding that her appetite almost nonexistent.

"You should eat something, K," Peeta said, a bite of his sandwich shoved into his cheek. "I know it's not my cooking, but it's alright. You'll feel horrible by the end of today if you don't eat."

Katniss continued to pick halfheartedly at her lunch, and then looked up at him to start a conversation. "So what happened with Delly?" she asked. "On Saturday. You said you had to get back home to her."

He nodded for a while as he chewed, waiting until he was done with the bite to speak. "She moved out," he said.

Katniss furrowed her dark eyebrows. "What?"

"She moved out," he said. "She said…" he shook his head slightly. "We're just not together anymore."

Katniss felt the tips of her fingers go numb. "Because of me? Because you've been staying with me?"

"No," he said, "well, technically, yes. But it's more than that."

She bit the inside of her cheek. "What did she say?"

"She said…" he sighed and set his sandwich down. "She said she didn't want to get in the way of family."

Katniss tipped her head to one side. "Family?"

He nodded. "Me and you. She said…I don't know, she said that we're family and she can see how much we need each other. She said she wasn't going to try and compete with that, and that it was better for both of us, her and I, if we just…broke it off."

"Oh, my god, Peeta," Katniss said, reaching across the table to take one of his sturdy hands. "Are you okay?"

"I am," he said. "She was great. But…" he shrugged. "I've just started to see things differently, since…" he didn't need to finish his sentence. "I've just started to see what matters and what doesn't. My priorities have shifted. I think, if that's the right way to put it."

Katniss nodded slowly, then looked up to meet his eyes. "It does make sense," she said. "Everything has changed."

When she went back to her office and Peeta returned to the bakery, she sat down and opened the drawer again, staring down at the photo for a long moment. When she felt tears start to burn behind her eyes, she flipped it over so it was face-down and all she could see was the branding on the back.

The outward-facing frames weren't enough. She tipped them over so the photos inside were hidden and plunked her elbows down on her desk, covering her face with her hands. She wouldn't let herself cry at work. She couldn't look at Mercy's face, that was obvious enough. She had to keep it together.

She couldn't become this person.

Peeta came to Katniss's work every day that week during lunchtime, and on Friday when he came to take her out, Madge met his eyes as he walked through the doors. He saw the sly smile on her face, and though she tried to keep her voice down, she heard her say "Katniss, your husband is here," in a singsong tone.

He felt his face flush like he was seventeen all over again. He willed his blush to go away, but as luck would have it, it stayed put on his fair skin.

"Did you hear her?" Katniss asked, buttoning her peacoat painstakingly as she came out from the long hallway. She rolled her eyes and tousled her hair, and Peeta caught wind of its flowery scent. She wasn't using Mercy's shampoo anymore. He wondered if she had weaned herself of it, or if it had simply run out. He wasn't sure because he hadn't been over to her house all this past week; he liked seeing her once a day at work, but thought it would be best to give her space once the day was done.

When they were out to lunch, she took his hand across the table and asked, "hey, do you want to come over and have pizza tonight?"

He nodded earnestly. "I'd love that," he said.

"If you want to, you can spend the night," she said, glancing away from him. He heard her foot start to tap the ground below. "Only if you want to."

"Definitely," Peeta said, rubbing over her knuckles with his thumb. "I'll pack a bag, since you hog the only pajama shirt that I have over there."

She smiled softly and lifted her chin to meet his eyes again. "I still hate it," she insisted.

"Sure," he said, raising his eyebrows. "Keep telling yourself that."

When he got to Katniss's later that night, he saw warm light coming from the bay window that showcased the living room and smiled to himself at the sight. He knocked the snow from his boots before he went inside, and found the front door unlocked. When he went inside, the oven was already warming up and she had the ingredients for pizza laid out on the counter, ready and waiting.

"I was starting to wonder where you were," she said, then touched her belly. "I'm so hungry. I was about to eat without you."

He hung his coat on the coatrack and walked over to her, wrapping his arms around her from behind and giving her a chaste kiss on the side of her head. "I'm glad you didn't," he said into her hair, "because I'm starving. Let's get this going."

They made the pizza with light conversation, letting long strips of silence cut through when there was nothing to say. It was comfortable silence, though. Silence between two people who had been through a lifetime of pain together and could still recognize each other once they resurfaced.

When they were sitting at the table after they finished eating, Peeta sighed as he looked around at the bare walls. "Still empty in here," he said.

"I know," Katniss replied, almost too quickly.

"Have you thought about maybe putting some back up?" he asked. "I kept the one of her balanced on your feet, and it makes me feel good when I look at it. I never thought that it would make me happy to look at it. I know you thought taking the pictures down would help, and maybe it did at the time, but… maybe if you put just a couple back."

She studied him for a long time, and he wondered if she was going to blow up. The air was charged between them, but when she spoke again, she was nodding. "Okay," she agreed. "I know it's empty."

"It makes it feel lonely in here," he said. "Just something on the wall would be better than all this blank space."

"Okay," she said, and stood up from the table. He hadn't meant that very moment, but he didn't stop her. She dragged a bunch of frames out from the hall closet and leaned them against the wall, and he stood up to help her.

He looked at each one carefully before handing it to her, but she held them with the photo side out so she couldn't see. Peeta was much too tempted not to look, though. As he looked at the frames, he saw Mercy yawning when she was a newborn dressed in all white; white socks, white pants, and a white onesie. He saw her when she wasn't quite two years old, her brown hair braided with a bow tied at the end, her face turned to the side as she slept with one elbow bent so she could rest her face on her hand. He saw her sitting on the floor of his kitchen, back facing the camera, wearing a floral printed dress with a peter pan collar and her hair in a ponytail, watching the oven where bread was baking.

He saw a shot of Katniss and Mercy in the kitchen; it looked like she had set up the camera to go off on a timer but they hadn't made it in time. Katniss was doubled over, holding Mercy's wrists, as Mercy smiled an open-mouthed grin up at her mother and was slack in her grip, all the while dressed in white thermal pajamas. He saw himself in swim trunks, lying down with a sleeping Mercy on his chest with her face looking away from the camera, in a red and white striped bathing suit with frills at the legs. He saw Katniss sitting on the edge of her bed on top of the white comforter, faced away from the camera as baby Mercy stood on her lap, one hand in her mouth, looking right into the lens. He saw the back of both of their heads again; Katniss's hair in a bun and Mercy's in a French braid, Katniss holding their daughter on her hip and looking over at her as they walked away from the camera.

He knew they had been inseparable. But seeing these photos where their lives together were frozen in time, it made his heart splinter.

Peeta noticed her watching him studying the pictures, though not looking at them herself. She had probably already seen them plenty of times.

"I like this one," he said, and showed her the one of she and Mercy in the kitchen.

She looked away before the image could even register, it seemed. She pulled her lips in between her teeth and shook her head minutely, raising her hand just slightly for him to move the picture away.

"I can't," she said, and set the frames down. "If you want to, you can. But I just can't."

She retreated up the stairs quietly, and Peeta was left alone with the big group of frames in varying sizes. He picked the smaller ones to put up, hanging them on their nails and standing back to look at the work he'd done.

He still found it hard to believe that she was really gone.

He changed into his pajamas in the downstairs bathroom and went up to find Katniss, knowing she was in her room. He leaned against the doorway and found her sitting on her bed, in the same place she had been in the photo with Mercy as a baby on her lap. But now she was alone, her head the only thing in her hands.

"Katniss," he said, and she jumped. "I'm here for you."

She sighed and sat up, and when she swiveled to look at him he could see hunger in her eyes that he hadn't seen for years. "Peeta," she said, and her voice was strained.

He sat down on the bed with her and they just stayed for a long minute, inner hips pressed against each other, not speaking. He linked his fingers with hers and she leaned her head to rest on his shoulder, each inhalation shakier than the one that came before.

"Katniss, I-"

He couldn't get his sentence out before she reached up and cupped his jaw in her hands, kissing him before he had a say either way. Her lips were feverish, her actions rushed and rattled; this wasn't the fluid, graceful Katniss that he knew.

"Please," she breathed, swinging one of her legs over his hips to press her groin against his stomach. "Peeta, please." She pressed her lips to his again, hungry for him, and held his head tight between her hands.

He lets his hands wander to rest first on the small of her back, and then glide lower to her butt. She was just wearing the Bears t-shirt and a pair of black underwear, and he was perfectly aware at how little fabric was separating them.

She grinded her hips against what she was closest to and he felt himself start to get hard at the same time she felt it. She broke apart from his lips, still breathing into his mouth as their foreheads were pressed together, and reached down between them to roughly run her hand over the bulge in his pants.

He jerked forward and plunked his forehead down on her shoulder. He could feel her heartbeat through her skin as she continued to stroke him, licking her lips as she did so.

She took his wrist and moved it to her chest, guiding his hand to cover her. He could feel only the t-shirt covering her small breast, it was obvious she wasn't wearing a bra by the prick of her nipple in the middle of his palm. He couldn't help it; he squeezed gently, but she encouraged him to squeeze harder by pressing in on his fingers.

"Peeta…" she breathed, and started to pull off his shirt.

Suddenly, he snapped to his senses. "Katniss, no," he said, pushing her gently away.

She grappled for him still, struggling as he held her at arm's length. "Please," she said, her voice choked with an oncoming sob.

"I know what you're doing," he said gently, pulling her to his chest. She laid her head down over his heart and wrapped her arms around his waist as tightly as she could. "You don't need to do this just so you feel something."

"I do," she said. "I need you."

Katniss lifted her head up from his chest and looked him in the eyes, tears still flowing freely down her cheeks. Peeta took her chin in his two fingers and kissed her lips softly, not letting it escalate, and after they broke apart she dissolved into another round of heavy sobs with her head on his lap.

He stroked her hair until she fell asleep.

Peeta was awake long before Katniss the next morning, but he just laid there with her small, soft body in his arms and watched her as she slept. Her lower lip was pouted out just slightly, and the scowl was completely gone from her mouth and forehead. The top of her hair was tickling his chin, and periodically he would blow it away. Just like her though, it was relentless.

When she woke up, her fingers spread out over his chest and she took in a deep inhale. She opened her eyes and blinked a few times, then moved her hand lower and slipped it under Peeta's shirt to stroke his smooth skin.

"I just can't believe that they're not here," Katniss said.

He didn't need to clarify who the 'they' was. He knew that she meant her sister.

"Peeta, is it real?" she asked, looking up at him through her thick, dark eyelashes.

Peeta looked away sadly. "It's real," he said.

She closed her eyes again and wept silently, sniffling occasionally. Peeta wondered if this was how she had dealt with Prim's passing, because he didn't have firsthand experience of helping her grieve.

He had thought she wanted him gone. She had told him to go away many times, and after hearing it so much, he obeyed. It was what he knew how to do to avoid punishment.

"I didn't know you wanted me to stay," he said, his lips grazing her hairline.

She sniffed in, orienting her thoughts. "What?" she asked.

"When Prim went," he said, stroking her shoulder with the hand that was under her body. "I didn't know that that's what you wanted. Was for me to stay with you."

"Oh, Peeta," she whimpered, her voice raising in pitch at the tail end. She covered her face and cried some more; he could feel her body trembling because of it.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I'm just so sorry that I didn't know."

She shook her head in a rattled sort of way. "It's not your fault," she said, and ran her hand over and over his t-shirt, smoothing down every wrinkle that appeared. "Just know that now, I want you to stay with me."

He didn't need to think about his answer. "Always," he said.


	8. Eight

On Sunday, throughout the day Katniss hung the pictures back up. One by one, taking hour-long breaks in between, but she hung them. It still stung to look at them for too long; she spent a lot of time avoiding Mercy's eyes, but it felt right to have them on the wall again.

It felt like Mercy was back at home.

"Peeta," Katniss said from the dining room, as he sat on the kitchen counter eating Nutella with a spoon straight out of the jar. "I want to see her."

He turned around and looked at her confusedly. "What?"

"I never saw her grave," she said, sounding ashamed. "I walked away. I don't think I should've done that."

Peeta hopped down from the counter to walk over and give her a hug. He rested his chin on the top of her head and ran his hands up and down her back. "If you want to go, we'll go," he said. "Get your coat."

Katniss sat in the passenger seat of her own car as Peeta drove, his hands firm and muscular as they were braced on the steering wheel. It was incredibly quiet as they drove through the city traffic and snow, so when they got to a stoplight, Peeta reached for the radio.

"How about some music?" he asked, and pressed the CD button.

Soothing lullabies sounded through the speakers; _Hallelujah_ by Jeff Buckley played on ukulele. Katniss sat completely still, staring ahead into the gently falling snow. She opened her mouth, but no words came.

The last time the radio had been turned on, she and Mercy had been coming back from Peeta's late on a Sunday night. It was past her bedtime, and Katniss had brought her lullaby CD just for that reason. Mercy had fallen asleep within moments in the back seat as the ukulele gently strummed, and Katniss had driven home feeling serene and complete.

She let her shoulders relax against the seat, and spoke without even realizing what she was saying. "She's asleep," she whispered, almost inaudibly.

Peeta reached across the seat and grabbed her hand that rested on her thigh. He gave it a squeeze, and drove on.

When they arrived at the cemetery, Katniss felt sure of herself. More than anything, she felt like she was paying her dues to Mercy. As her mother, she felt horrible for not watching as her daughter got completely lowered into the ground. She was never supposed to leave her side.

She had abandoned Mercy that day because she had been sad. She didn't know if it was possible to have been more selfish.

Peeta led the way, keeping a firm yet gentle hold on Katniss's hand, and then braced it on the small of her back once they got closer.

Mercy had been buried more than a month ago, but the earth over her grave was still different and softer than the rest. Snow had piled up on top of the rounded surface of the headstone, and Peeta leaned forward to brush it off. Katniss ignored the blanket of white on the ground and dropped to her knees in front of the stone, reading the words for the very first time

 _Mercy Primrose Everdeen_

 _June 29 2011 – December 22 2016_

 _The love that I have_

 _Of the life that I have_

 _Is yours and yours and yours_

 _Peace, perfect peace_

 _We love you best_

Katniss touched the cool stone and noticed how badly her fingers were shaking.

"You did this," she whispered to Peeta, as she still stared at the stone and its inscriptions. "You thought of these words."

"Yeah," he said, his voice weak. "Nothing did her justice as much as I wanted. But I tried."

"You did," she whispered, and then moved forward and wrapped her arms around the stone. She hoped in hugging it, it would force emotion to flow through her, like she was hugging Mercy herself. She felt no such thing.

"It's just a stone," Peeta said, his gentle fingers resting between her shoulder blades. "Katniss, it's just a stone."

She kept her arms wrapped around the slick, hard headstone, and rested her cheek on the top where the snow had been. When she blinked open her eyes, her arms ached from the cold and the scene around her had not changed. "It's just a stone," she said aloud, and broke away from it. She sat back on her heels and pressed her palms into the freezing earth below her, where deep below, the casket that held their daughter lay. "It's a stone," she said again. "Mercy is gone."

At work the following day, Katniss sat at her desk and turned up the frames that she had put down. Frame by frame, Mercy's face became visible again. When she came to the last frame, she realized that she didn't recognize it, but turned it up anyway.

It was the picture of Mercy balanced on her feet, flying high and laughing dressed in just her diaper. Katniss clutched the edges of the frame and bit the inside of her cheek, feeling her throat become clogged with tears.

In the bottom corner, there was a tiny note written. She recognized the handwriting as no one else's but Peeta's.

 _She's not far away._

Katniss placed the picture right in the middle of her desk and spent the rest of the day glancing over at it, realizing that his words couldn't have been truer. Before she went home, she pulled Mercy's kindergarten school picture out from her desk drawer and tucked it safely into her bag so she could bring it home to him. She kept her hand on it until she got to her car, reminding herself of the words he had written.

When she walked through the door, Peeta was already in the kitchen making dinner. Before she even took her shoes off, Katniss pulled out the picture from her bag and handed it to him, waiting for him to wipe off his hands before he took it.

"She's not far away," she said.

On Mercy's birthday in June, Katniss was sitting at the dining room table staring down at the grains in the wood. Peeta went out to run 'an errand' so he said, vaguely, and had told her to wait somewhere downstairs.

It hadn't been an easy day so far. She had been dreading it for weeks, watching the calendar as the date got closer and closer. She had been right to dread it, too, because from the moment her eyes had opened that morning, memories of Mercy's birth six years before had inundated her mind.

She had shown signs of early labor in the morning and hadn't hesitated to call Peeta. She could still picture right where she had been when she felt the first pain, coming out of the shower with one hand reaching for a towel and the other supporting her big, rounded belly.

The contractions had started in her back. Mercy wasn't shy about making her presence known, and she wanted out _bad_.

Peeta had come to pick Katniss up, leaving the car running and rushing inside to help her down the stairs. Her hair was still dripping wet, but luckily since it was the end of June, it didn't matter much.

Katniss had had a hard time feeling excitement for her baby because of all the fear that came along with her arrival. They already knew that Mercy was going to be born with severe heart issues, and that she might not make it past delivery. She had already beaten the odds that way.

But obviously, she did make it. She made it until five years later, when the odds beat her.

Katniss leaned her weight forward onto her elbows, rubbing her temples with her fingertips. Her chest ached. She wanted to go back to sleep and skip this day altogether, but Peeta had forbidden it. Before she even got up this morning, he had framed an old picture of Mercy on her last birthday and put it in the middle of the two sinks in the bathroom where the picture of Mercy flying high on Katniss's feet had once been. Now, that photo stayed on Katniss's desk in its pretty little frame.

Her head snapped up when she heard the key in the door, and she watched Peeta come in with his back leading the way. When he turned around, she saw that he had a little cake in his hands, bought specially from Sweet Mandy B's down the street.

It had been Mercy's favorite bakery when she was still alive. They would always walk there together, hand in hand, and order her cake together so she could have it just how she liked. It was something that she looked forward to for weeks preceding. Sometimes, when the bakery was busy, and it usually was, Mercy and Katniss would sit in the parlor chairs across from each other with tiny bakery treats in front of them and make a list of what she wanted for her special day.

But a dead child doesn't want. A dead daughter asks for nothing.

"Oh," Katniss said softly as Peeta set the cake down. It was a tiny replica of the last one she had; chocolate on chocolate with 'happy birthday' and her name written in loopy cursive. It was just big enough for two. "You didn't have to do this."

"I did," he said, and pulled out a chair to sit down. He took the cake out of its cardboard box and set it between them, pulling candles out from a plastic CVS bag. He'd done the rounds this morning.

He put six of them on the cake. They fit in a perfect circle. Katniss's eyes burned as he lit them.

They didn't sing. She couldn't even open her mouth, because she knew if she did she'd start to sob and she wouldn't be able to stop. Peeta whispered, "happy birthday," and blew them out himself.

He cut it and dished them out a slice each, then reached over and held her wrist. His grip was warm and rough against her skin, his thumb rubbing in comforting circles.

"One time when she was over at my place," Peeta began, and Katniss's breath caught in her throat. She knew he was trying to make this a happy, reminiscent time, but she felt like it wasn't necessary. She felt it would just be easier to disappear, maybe have a drink, fall asleep, and wait for this day to pass. But even through her deadpan stare, he continued. "She was looking at a picture of you. I have no idea where she found it, but Delly was for sure pissed. It was an old one, like from our sophomore year when we moved into the townhouse. You were posing all funny in front of it, hands in the air."

She knew the photo. She could picture it vividly.

"She ran up to me first thing in the morning, her eyes still all sleepy. I swear to god; the sun wasn't even up yet. I was kind of awake because of the bakery, but she shook me and was all like, daddy, daddy! You have to look at this. So I did, I flicked on the lamp and she held it out for me, and she was practically exploding with excitement. She said, look how pretty Mommy is. Did you get to kiss her?" Peeta laughed as he recalled the memory. "I told her that I did. And she said, I kid you not, hot dog!" He giggled some more, and even Katniss couldn't keep herself from smiling. "You were her person, Katniss," he said.

The smile died away from her face then. She swiped beneath her eyes and let out a deep breath she'd been holding, then tried to take a bite of the cake. She didn't taste a thing.

"I know you probably don't like this," he said, licking the frosting from the tines of his fork. "But…" he sighed. "I just wanted to do something to honor her. I didn't want to waste the day away, or forget what it means altogether. I know this isn't easy for you. It's not for me, either."

She was tempted to argue, to get mad and storm off. But she couldn't bring herself to feel much of anything. She understood his sentiments, but didn't mirror them.

"You don't have to say anything," he said, taking another bite. "I can do all the talking. I just know that…that she'd like this."

Katniss couldn't deny that he was right. She knew Mercy wouldn't like her staying in bed all day, because Katniss had never done that while she was still alive. She had no reason to. If it was possible that Mercy was watching her from wherever she was, she'd like that Katniss made an effort today. She always noticed the little things.

Katniss nodded and took another tiny bite. The sweetness hit the back of her tongue almost harshly, and she pursed her lips together from it.

"I know, it's really sweet," Peeta said, laughing. "Good thing it's small, because it's almost too much."

"But you know she'd be going crazy over it," Katniss said, forcing herself to say something. "If she were here, it'd be gone."

Peeta smiled, one side of his mouth coming up crookedly. He didn't need to say a word; she already knew what he was thinking. That they were trying. And they'd get through this together.

When they finished the cake, he pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. It was folded into a tiny square, with Mercy's name written on the front in Peeta's blocky print. "I wrote her a letter," he said, and set it in his place on the table. He didn't volunteer to read it, and Katniss would never ask. "I wanted to know if you'd come to the cemetery with me so I could leave it there."

She blinked at him as she let her thought process take its time. "I'll go," she said. "I want to write something, too."

She went and got a pad of paper from the junk drawer in her office off the living room and brought it back to the table. She uncapped a fountain pen, painstakingly set the lid off to the side, and poised the tip of it on the paper in preparation to write. The ink didn't even have time to blot before she started moving her pen in long, fluid strokes. She only wrote one sentence, nothing else.

 _I wasn't finished loving you._

Two months later, Chicago was experiencing wet heat in the beginning of September. Luckily, the air conditioning was cranked and there wasn't much reason to leave the house.

Katniss was in the kitchen, washing dishes at the sink. She heard Peeta's footsteps behind her and smiled softly to herself when he wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her hair.

"You know what today is, right?" he asked, his voice close to her ear. It made the little hairs inside it stand on end.

She continued scrubbing a particularly stubborn plate. "Uh, Thursday?"

"This was our anniversary," he said, and tightened his arms around her waist.

She raised her eyebrows and continued to wash the plate. Peeta untied the apron she had been ironically wearing and cast it to the side, but she just shifted her weight and kept on scrubbing.

"What?" he asked, pulling her hair away from her shoulders.

"You could never remember when we were actually dating," she said, finally setting the plate down and turning around to face him. She leaned the small of her back against the counter and pressed her weight back on her hands.

"Well…I learned..." Peeta said, drawing her in close so their torsos were flush against each other. He paused, and then narrowed his eyes with a new thought. "Wait, what do you mean _were_ dating?"

"Well…" she shrugged her shoulders and made a clueless expression with her face.

"Do you want to be my girlfriend, Katniss?" he asked, letting his fingers wander beneath the hem of her soft Henley shirt.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes, but couldn't suppress her smile. "Aren't we a little past this, _Peeta_?"

"What would you suggest, then?" he asked, removing his hands from her waist, maybe a bit perturbed.

He took her spot at the sink, picking up the sponge and yet another plate. She giggled low in her throat, and then replaced him completely by wrapping her arms around his waist with her chest pressed to his back.

She spread her fingers out over his pecs and grabbed them tight in her fingers, trapping him as close as she could to the counter. She rubbed up and down his chest and felt him take a deep breath in as she moved her hands lower to skim over his ass. She took generous handfuls of it and squeezed hard, which made him start to laugh.

"What do you think you're doing?" he chuckled.

She turned him around and gave him a lasting kiss on the mouth; one that held passion behind it that had not been present for a long time.

He moved his hand down and slipped it between her thighs, and she took in a deep breath and felt her hips jerk against his fingers. He slipped inside her shorts and pulled her underwear to one side. He pressed his hand against her heat, and she had to lean back against the counter so she wouldn't collapse to the floor.

He rubbed against her, not inserting any fingers, but did just enough to leave her wanting more. She grappled for him and found the way to his groin, where she took his bulge in her hand and squeezed with everything she had.

"Oh," Peeta moaned, "fuck."

She fiddled with his belt until it landed with a loud clank to the kitchen floor, and then shucked his pants down around his ankles. She dropped to her knees and saw how hard he was, and then wrapped her fingers around the waistband of his boxer-briefs and pulled them down very slowly.

When was freed, she wasted no time in putting him in her mouth. He held onto the back of her head gently and scratched her scalp with his fingernails and she took as much of him as she could. He couldn't help it, his hips jerked and he bucked into her mouth, and she gagged just slightly but laughed about it.

She took him out of her mouth with a soft popping sound, then looked up at him and said, "damn you."

She pumped him with her hand and could tell by his face that he was going to come soon, so she took him back in her mouth and let him shoot off, feeling most of it slide down her throat.

"Oh, my god," Peeta said, pulling his underwear back up around his waist. He wiped her face off with a paper towel from the counter and lifted her to a standing position, then kissed her roughly. "Come on," he said, and carried her up the stairs to what had become their bedroom.

He set her down on the bed and she laid on her stomach, curiously watching him as he took his shirt and pants back off and was left in only his underwear. To join him, she took off everything until she was left in just a bra and underwear, too, still lying there on her belly.

He surprised her and straddled her hips with his groin positioned right under her the round of her butt. He kneaded her back like he kneaded his bread, pressing his fingers firmly into the tight, knotted muscles, moving lower and lower until he was massaging the soft, supple skin of her ass. She let her forehead fall to hit her wrists and lifted her hips so her ass was higher in the air, and he slipped his fingers under her and teased at the edge of her underwear until she was dying for him to touch her.

He pulled down her panties and she felt his breath against her; hot and tepid. His fingers grazed her center and then he pulled her body back by her hips, making her knees scoot across the bed, and pressed a deliberate kiss to the dimples at the small of her back.

"Lay down," he said softly, coaxing her with his hands.

She obeyed. With her arms strewn over her head, she laid on her back completely naked once he took her bra off in a subtle, quick motion. He kissed the middle of her chest, and she ran her fingers through his unkempt curls, feeling his tongue dart out from his lips to lick a path from her sternum to her jaw, where he then lingered.

"I love you," he whispered, one of his hands skimming her waist, "more than you think I do."

She smiled softly, tipping her head to one side. "I love you," she repeated, and meant it. It wasn't a sentiment they exchanged often, so when they did, it was obvious how much it meant. He pressed a lasting kiss to her mouth, one with so much emotion behind it that she felt tears spring to her eyes when he broke away. "More than you think I do," she whispered.

He gently pressed his lips to any open skin of hers he could reach. Her forehead, her temples, her chin, over her hammering heart. She couldn't believe that, through all of their strife, how easy it was to fall in love all over again with this beautiful boy.

When he pushed inside her, she felt every ridge of him like she never had before. She was more present now than she had been during the months preceding. While his hips pumped against hers, his face was buried in her neck with his mouth open against her skin, teeth grazing her just slightly. She kept her eyes open. She didn't want to miss a single moment.

Katniss started to see sparks when he went in even deeper, hitting the spot just right as he lifted her hips on an angle. She struggled for something to grab onto, and dug her nails into the smooth, firm skin of his shoulders when she came. She let herself go silently, her mouth opened in with a trapped scream, and squeezed her eyes shut. As her muscles contracted, she felt him press light kisses to her chest; over her collarbones, then to the undersides of her breasts, idling on her nipples. He took his time worshiping her, just as he always had.

When it was over, though their skin was hot and sticky, Katniss couldn't resist folding herself into Peeta's arms. They were both lying on their sides, and she laid her head on his chest. He wrapped an arm around her neck to place his hand over her hair, keeping her close to him while wrapping the other arm around the middle of her back. She had never felt so safe.

About six weeks later, Peeta was sitting across from Katniss at Cheesie's as she devoured a grilled cheese called "The Popper". The draw of it was that there were more spicy things on it than not, and Peeta just stared at her, shaking his head.

"What?" she asked, shoveling the last quarter of a half in her mouth. Little specks of crust flew out from between her lips as she spoke, and he reached across the table and dabbed at the corner of her lips with a folded napkin.

"You've been so into spicy things lately," he said, setting the napkin down.

She shrugged one shoulder and picked up the other half of her sandwich. "Tastes good," she said, still chewing. "You should try."

"No way," he said, slurping his tomato soup. "You know I hate that spicy stuff. I'll take sweet over spicy any day."

She rolled her eyes. "Typical."

Before they left the restaurant, she went to the bathroom and then came back out, adjusting her shirt. "Ready?" he asked. They were planning on going to the fountain. It was a beautiful Saturday in the end of October. The weather was just cold enough for a fleece, but nothing more.

"Yeah," she said, fiddling with her zipper. "I'm just so bloated. Geez." She ran her hands over her belly. "I think I ate too fast."

"Well, you've been hungry," he said.

"Seasons are changing," she said.

He laughed. "As if that makes any difference.

She smacked his arm. "It does," she insisted.

They got on the Red Line headed towards the Loop, and Katniss let her head fall to rest on Peeta's shoulder. Almost as soon as she did, she shut her eyes and fell straight to sleep. He held her hand gently while she dozed, running his thumb over the bumps of her knuckles. She had been eating much more than usual, that was true. He could see the tiniest paunch of her belly because her leggings were positioned in an odd way, and he couldn't help but grin to himself because of it.

They got off at Jackson and started walking to the place that they knew so well. Katniss was slower than usual; Peeta had to lessen his stride substantially so she wouldn't drag behind. He kept her hand, though, and listened to her sigh and trudge along.

"I really ate way too much way too fast," she said, rolling her eyes at herself once the fountain was in view. "I feel…so bad. Like, _really_ bad."

He looked over at her and saw that her skin had grown a bit sallow. "Are you okay?" he asked, and she waved him off.

"Stop worrying about me," she said. "I'm just fat."

"Shut up," he said, and they walked to the little fence around the fountain. The sound coming from the water was deafening. This was probably going to be one the last nice days before winter started to fall, so they had wanted to utilize it. The lake was shimmering behind them, and there were only a few other people milling around.

"It feels weird," Peeta said. "I feel like I'm still the same person as I was when I first met you here. But at the same time, I feel like if I met that person, I wouldn't recognize them at all."

She nodded slowly, wordlessly agreeing. "I know," she said.

They didn't need to say much more to each other. They just stood there in front of the fountain that held so much, hand-in-hand, and watched the water cascade down. After a few minutes passed, Katniss broke her hand away from his and hurried away in the direction of the nearest trash can.

Peeta rushed after her. Once he caught up, he kept one hand on the small of her back as she threw up the spicy grilled cheese sandwich she had scarfed down just a little bit ago. "Are you okay?" he asked when she came up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Something was not right with that cheese," she said, pointing her finger and coming to conclusions instantly. "It didn't sit right with me." She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath. "I need to sit."

They walked to a bench and Peeta kept an arm around her, noticing how the stride of her walk had changed just slightly. It looked strikingly familiar to a stride he had seen on her once before, about six years prior.

"Katniss…" he said, cautious to say what he wanted.

"What," she said, almost snapping.

He wondered if it was the right time. He knew that probably no time was the right time, so he decided to just go for it. "Do you think you might be pregnant?"

The silence that followed his words was overflowing with malice on her end. She let go of his hand and crossed her arms over her chest, closing her body off. "You're kidding," she spat. She was shaking her head. "Just because I've gained a little weight, you're calling me pregnant? Thanks a lot, Peeta." She scoffed. "It's half your fault, bringing home all that shit from the bakery all the time."

"That's not what I'm saying at all," he insisted. "Not at all. You know I love you no matter what, I think you're beautiful. But I was just thinking about it… you have a craving for spicy food again. You get up to pee probably thirty times a night, and I've read that that can be a sign-"

"You seriously went online and googled _signs_ , Peeta…" she said, contention heavy in her voice. "It's my body. I think I'd know. And I'm not."

He let the subject go. "Okay, I believe you. You're not."

"Thank you," she said under her breath, her shoulders turned away from him.

He ignored her body language and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her body closer to his. Even through her icy exterior, she melted against him and sighed, pressing her forehead into his neck once she got comfortable. "Sorry," she said.

"Don't worry about it," Peeta said, and kissed the top of her head.

As they lay in bed that night, Katniss squirmed around as she relentlessly tried to get comfortable. Once she was still for more than a minute, Peeta relaxed and thought that she was down for the night. Of course it was only a false alarm, and she shoved the covers away so she could stalk off to the bathroom to pee for what felt like the millionth time.

"Fucking fuck," she cursed, her voice more of a hiss as she came to lay back down. She forcefully lifted Peeta's arm and inserted herself inside his grip, and then snuggled into his side.

He closed his eyes and dragged his fingertips over her shoulder in hopes to lull her to sleep. He waited for her breathing to slow; he prided himself in knowing the exact moment that she fell asleep each night, but he didn't hear a change.

"I can't fucking sleep," she growled, and he heard the slap of her hands against her face as she covered it. "I have heartburn. I have to pee again. I don't know what's wrong with me."

He was silent.

"I can't stop thinking about what you said, either. So don't even think about an 'I told you so'."

"I wasn't thinking that at all," he said quietly.

"Liar," she retorted.

He snorted. "I really wasn't."

"Yeah, yeah, because you're Mr. Amazing and I'm this mean cow. That's how it always works."

"Oh, Katniss, stop," he said, "I have some antacids in the medicine cabinet. I'll get some for you."

She didn't protest. He flicked the overheard light on and padded to the bathroom, coming back with a small cup of water and a few tablets in hand. She took them and leaned against the headboard, her face downcast in a pout.

"I can't be pregnant," she said. It seemed like she said it mostly for herself, to herself.

"Maybe you aren't," he said, crawling back in bed with her after turning the light off.

She leaned her head against him as she still sat up, and he wrapped an arm around her once again. "What do you think?" he asked, but got no answer in return.

She was asleep.

Katniss was up at least five times during the night to pee, and after the last time, she stood between the sinks and stared at herself in the mirror. She had to admit, she looked puffy. Her face was heavier than usual, and she was definitely carrying more weight in her midsection, too. She pressed her hands against her breasts, and felt a bit hopeful when there was no tenderness. But since it was pretty early to tell, she knew that wasn't a great indicator.

She hadn't told Peeta, but she hadn't had a period since before the last time they had sex. She had been trying to deny it, had been trying to blame it on stress, but along with everything else…the symptoms had grown hard to ignore.

She was terrified to say it out loud, but Peeta took the liberty to do so himself earlier that day. She lashed out at him thanks to the hormones, mostly because she didn't want it to be noticeable to anyone but herself. She had wanted to be wrong so, so badly.

Katniss walked back into their bedroom and climbed under the covers, running her fingers through Peeta's chest hair until he stirred.

"Are you awake?" she whispered, as if it had been an accident.

"Mhm," he grunted, "am now. Thanks."

"Yeah," she said. "Peeta."

"Hi."

"Peeta…" she trailed off, and he adjusted her body so she was resting most of her weight on top of him. She stacked her fists on his chest and balanced her chin on them so she could look right into his eyes.

"What is it, K," he slurred, his eyes blinking very heavily.

"I think I'm pregnant."

His expression barely changed, if at all. He just lifted a hand, smoothed her hair back, and kissed her forehead. Then he said, "I know."

The hospital fit her in for an appointment two weeks from that next morning for an official pregnancy test, and also an ultrasound if she proved positive. There was no doubt in her mind that she would, in fact, prove positive.

On the morning of the appointment, as Peeta made coffee and scones downstairs, Katniss sat on Mercy's bed. She had cleaned up the room so it didn't look like it did when Mercy still lived in it; everything was back in its rightful spot, never to be messed up again by a whirlwind child. At least not the same whirlwind child.

Katniss blinked hard and breathed in shakily. She wanted to say something, but she wasn't sure what words to use. She took a frameless photo from Mercy's nightstand and smoothed it over her knee, smiling faintly as she looked at it. It was from Halloween when Mercy was three years old; when she had dressed up as an angel.

"I didn't want this," Katniss said, her eyes never breaking from Mercy's in the photo. Even in the low, late-fall light, it was obvious that they were the striking blue of her father's. "I really didn't." She flattened the curling edges of the picture and traced Mercy's shoulders all the way down to her fingertips. "I wish you were here," she said. "More than anything, I wish you were here."

"K," Peeta said, appearing in the doorway with a little plate of scones. "Ready to go? I have some for the road, too."

Katniss stood up from the bed and nodded, leaving the photograph back where she had found it. When they got in the car, she munched absentmindedly on a scone and Peeta sipped a thermos full of coffee – coffee that was definitely mostly cream.

"Heard you talking to her," he said after they had driven a few miles. They were headed to Northwestern Memorial, which was just a bit of a drive away.

"Oh," Katniss said, curling her fingers around the grip on the passenger's side door.

"It scares me, too," he said, glancing over to her as he tapped the brakes in response to the traffic on Fullerton.

"I'm not scared," she said, trying to keep her tone conversational and light.

Peeta waited a moment to respond, taking a turn onto Lakeshore Drive before he said anything. "And that's why you chose not to tell me for more than six weeks," he said. His voice had no animosity, but it was pointed.

She sighed. He could always see right through her.

They didn't need to voice their fears out loud. It was already blatantly obvious what they were afraid of. They were afraid that history would repeat itself or worse, that it wouldn't.

Lying on that hard bed in the temperate, dark room with her shirt pushed up to her bra-line, Katniss was more afraid than she had been in a long time. When the OB squirted the gel onto her stomach, she smiled slightly and told Katniss she could take a few deep breaths to calm down. She had either felt her quick pulse through her skin, or noticed the cold sweat she had broken out into. Either way, the calming words didn't have any effect.

Peeta was holding onto her hand for dear life, and she was gripping him with equal fervor. She didn't know what she wanted to see on that screen. The doctor had already told her that yes, she was pregnant, and about eight-and-a-half weeks along at that. Still though, somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she was convinced that he was wrong.

The OB flicked the screen to life, and then pressed the sensor to Katniss's belly. She could feel Peeta's eyes darting between her exposed skin and the monitor, not really sure which one to watch. This was the second time they had done this together, though the first time no one had been holding her hand. No one had been comforting her.

How was it possible that she was more scared now than back then?

She closed her eyes and let out a long breath, her lips pressed together to form an 'O' shape. She was about to open her mouth and tell the OB that it was obvious the doctor was wrong, but an all-too-familiar sound interrupted her words before they could come out.

A deep, whooshing thrum. Quick and incredibly loud. It filled the entire room and it was coming from inside Katniss, but it was not hers.

"Oh, there it is," the OB said, grinning. "That's your baby's heartbeat."

Katniss's neck relaxed so her head hit the thin cushion beneath her. Somehow, she gripped Peeta's hand tighter. "Is it strong?" she whispered.

The OB smiled, moving the sensor a bit so the heartbeat stayed audible. "That's the strongest heartbeat I've ever heard."

 _Strong and steady?_

 _Steady and strong._


	9. Epilogue

It was early June when they took him to the fountain for the first time. He was almost three years old, and when they parked the car he was fast asleep in the back seat.

"Beau," Katniss gently said, standing next to his sleeping form. She ran one hand over his chubby leg and felt her heart swell just looking at his sweet face.

With his eyes closed, he was Peeta's clone. He had wily blonde curls with a mind of their own, and on a muggy day like that one, they were sticking up every which way. His skin was fair and he had already been slathered with sunscreen before they left the house.

"Beau," she said again, finger-combing his ringlets back.

His eyes opened and like always, the blue made her breath hitch. Peeta's blue. Mercy's blue.

"We're here, honey," she said, and unbuckled him by pressing the button between his chunky thighs. She picked him out of the seat and held his sturdy body on her hip.

"Water?" he asked curiously, resting an arm on her shoulder and pivoting to look for the source of the roaring sound.

"A lot of it, too," Peeta said, and ruffled his son's hair. "Ready to see it, buddy?"

Katniss heaved her toddler up higher; though he grew heavy after a while, she relished the days where he still wanted to be held.

"You got him?" Peeta asked, grinning. He always poked fun at the fact that seeing the two of them next to each other made Beau look exaggeratedly big and Katniss exaggeratedly small. He really cracked himself up over it.

"I got him," Katniss said, and kissed Beau's round cheek.

They walked together towards the fountain with Peeta keeping a hand circled around her waist. Beau's third birthday was coming soon, and they had both agreed that they wanted him to see this special place. It was about the right time.

They hadn't yet told him about Mercy, though the time would come soon.

He wasn't to the age yet where he could fully understand. When he got a bit older, they planned on telling him about the sister he would never meet. The sister he would outgrow once he turned six.

Beau and Mercy's birthdays were within 20 days of each other. For each of his birthdays, they had a private celebration for hers, too. After all the guests had left and Beau had gone to bed, sugared up and happy, they each lit a candle and blew it out.

He didn't ask about the little girl in all the pictures, not yet at least. They knew that eventually, he would. And eventually, they'd have to answer questions that would force the pain to resurface.

"Big water!" Beau said excitedly. "All the water!"

Katniss set him down and he kept a fistful of her skirt in his chubby fist, making sure she wouldn't go anywhere. She replaced the fabric with her hand, and then Peeta took his other one as they walked to the fountain together.

They had taken the surrounding gates down in the recent years, just for the summertime.

"You wanna go in, Beau?" Peeta asked, kneeling down to his level. "You can splash around, do whatever you want. You wanna cool off?"

"Go in," Beau said, stomping his feet. "Beau go in!"

"Alright, let's get this shirt off," Peeta said, and pulled the tiny, navy blue shirt over their son's head.

"Daddy, too?" Beau asked, opening and closing his fingers in Peeta's direction.

Peeta rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "You want me to get all wet with you?" he asked, "really?"

"Daddy, too!" the little boy laughed, doubling over with giggles.

"Okay, fine. Just let me take my shoes off."

"Mama?" Beau called out, outstretching his arm towards Katniss who was lingering back. "Mama, too?"

"Mama will stay out and watch," Katniss said with a smile. "You boys can go in. I'll be right here."

Beau settled for her answer, turning back around towards his father. Peeta lifted him in first, which earned a squeal in response to the chilly water. Peeta got in next and Katniss watched him lift his feet out as he got used to the temperature. She was just far away enough that she couldn't hear their conversation, she could just see that they were talking back and forth and laughing so hard that their eyes scrunched shut, crinkling at the corners. When Beau threw his head back and laughed, it was almost like Mercy was right there, laughing about the same thing. They were identical in their happiness.

There were no more Barbies strewn about the floor at home. There was no little girls' laundry folded on the dining room table, no Hello Kitty alarm clock or patent leather Mary-Jane shoes.

There was no hair-braiding, no blue cable-knit sweaters, no _Your Song,_ and no 'I love you best'. There wasn't any hand sanitizer clipped to backpacks, no listening compulsively to heartbeats through an old stethoscope, and no echocardiograms.

But there were still Netflix and treat nights, snuggling and sleeping in on weekends, and pizza Fridays. There was still L'Oreal No Tears shampoo, Oscar Mayer school, and many, many toothpaste handprints on the bathroom mirror.

Beau was not Mercy. He never would be.

But he was loved. Oh, he was loved.

He didn't mind the wind whooshing through the gutters in the winter. He wasn't broken of his pacifier yet, and she had never used one. After brushing out his hair, blonde strands covered Katniss's lap while Mercy's long brunette hair had always found its way to the floor.

They couldn't have been more different, but both Katniss and Peeta agreed that she would've loved him.

He was proof that it was possible; when it seemed they would never smile again, that life could come back.


End file.
